SOSM Leadership

Dr. Shandler graduated from Albany Medical College Albany New York. He did his pediatric residency at Boston City Hospital. He served in the US Public Health Service/Indian Health Service on the Navajo Nation before settling in Santa Fe New Mexico. He served as Assistant District Health officer for the New Mexico Department of Health for several years until he went into private practice. For the past 5 years, Dr. Shandler has been pediatrician at a Federally Qualified Health Center in Santa Fe. He has been on the clinical faculty at the University New Mexico Medical School since his arrival in Santa Fe. He currently teaches second year family medicine and pediatric residents Advocacy and Population Health. This rotation is held during the annual meeting of the New Mexico State Legislature.

He has had a long history of advocacy for children, families and pediatricians. He is served at the community, state and national levels. He is a past president of the New Mexico chapter. He has severed on the AAP Chapter Forum Committee of the ALF. In the summer of 2019, served at the US/Mexico border caring for asylum seekers. Currently he is the co-chair of the New Mexico Pediatric Society's Legislative and Government Affairs Committee. He serves on the New Mexico Human Services Department Medicaid Advisory Committee.

He would like the SOSM to become more involved in encouraging and mentoring younger members of the Academy to incorporate advocacy in both their professional and personal 

Jay E. Berkelhamer, M.D. of Atlanta, Georgia, is Emeritus Staff Pediatrician at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA), Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at Emory, and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at Morehouse. Dr. Berkelhamer attended the University of Michigan and trained in Pediatrics at the University of Chicago. Following residency and USPHS service in Norfolk, Virginia, he joined the University of Chicago faculty and practiced general pediatrics. After 20 years in Chicago, he became Chair of Pediatrics at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan. He became the first Chief Medical Officer of the newly created CHOA in 1999 and transitioned to Chief Academic Officer in 2007. In 2010, he retired from active clinical practice and administration and now devotes time to teaching and child advocacy initiatives. He is particularly concerned about early brain development and is a board member of GEEARS (Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students) and a member of the Atlanta United Way Public Policy Committee, advocating for Medicaid expansion in Georgia. Over the years, he has served on multiple AAP committees including chairing the COSGA (Committee on State Government Affairs). He is a Past President of the American Academy of Pediatrics (2006-2007) and currently is the treasurer of the International Pediatric Association. While AAP President he actively advocated for the reauthorization of SCHIP.

Renée R. Renée R. Jenkins is professor and chair emerita of the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at Howard University in Washington DC. Before she retired in 2014, she directed the Office of Faculty Development. It soon became apparent that most program materials were aimed at early career physicians and climbing the promotional ladder, but very few resources available for late career people with the exception of financial matters. She soon began identifying programs like ENCORE, Inc. to do workshops on revitalizing retirement and getting out of the fast lane. She would like to continue finding resources for senior members that help them keep vibrant in their professional communities. Dr. Jenkins was president of the American Academy of Pediatrics from 2007-8. She is also a past Chair of the Pediatric Section of the National Medical Association, past national president of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine and Past -President of the District of Columbia Chapter. She keeps busy now with tennis, her grandsons Jay and Julius and volunteer opportunities with the AAP and SAHM.

I received my MD from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1973 and completed a pediatric residency at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in 1976. I practiced 14 years as a community pediatrician before returning to academic medicine in 1990 for a neonatal-perinatal fellowship. I have practiced as a neonatologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children’s Hospital since completing my fellowship in 1993. I continue to work full time, which I still enjoy, including in-house overnight call. My research interests include neonatal pain, telemedicine, and infant mortality. Our team discovered that infant mortality and morbidity, as well as costs could be lowered through perinatal regionalization using telemedicine.

I am responsible for Peds PLACE (Pediatric Physician Learning and Collaborative Education), a telemedicine educational project that brings the insight of “town and gown” together to foster learning opportunities for academic and community providers. I co-authored the AAP technical report on telemedicine in 2015. I am active in the March of Dimes, and past president of the local Ronald McDonald House, and the Arkansas Family Home, a home similar to the Ronald McDonald House serving our university families. I chair the Senior Interest Group at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

In my spare time, I love playing on the water, hunting, fishing, and other outdoor activities. Most of all, I enjoy being with my kids and 17 grandchildren anywhere, but especially on the water.

I hope the years of experience, both as a community pediatrician and an academic neonatologist, will help serve the needs of the Senior Section’s membership. I strongly support the AAP strategic plan, especially regarding the importance of telemedicine, the use of technology, and the need for pediatric subspecialists to function in innovative and rural health care systems. I believe our section can benefit the AAP through their experience, while at the same time providing relevance and support for our senior members.

Chris an Attending Pediatrician and Research Scientist at Bassett Healthcare Network in Cooperstown, NY. He received his medical degree from Michigan State University, and his MPH from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Dr. Kjolhede did his pediatric training at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York.
 
His clinical practice in Cooperstown, NY, includes a primary care clinic and he is the Co-Director of a School-Based Health Program that has 22 school-based health centers in 18 school districts in four counties.  Dr. Kjolhede was co-author of the most recent American Academy of Pediatrics, Council on School Health policy paper on School-Based Health Centers.  He has also co-authored numerous publications based on his past research in international health, the relationship between breastfeeding and obesity and, most recently related to the impact of school-based health centers. 

Dr. Kjolhede is a member of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the Bassett Research Institute. He is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of its Council on School Health. Formerly, he served on the COSH executive committee and was Program Chair.  He served on the Board of Directors for the New York School-Based Health Alliance and is a member of the National Alliance for School-Based Health and the New York School-Based Health Foundation.  He is a current member of the New York State Transplant Council as a parent representative.  He has an appointment as Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics for the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York.

Dan trained in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, followed by a fellowship in epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh.  He retired from clinical practice in 2017 after a career in academic general pediatrics in New York and North Carolina.  He is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at Atrium Health and has been on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. In the AAP, he has been executive committee member and chair of the Section on Epidemiology, Public Health and Evidence, member of the Steering Committee on Quality Improvement Management, and executive committee member of the Council on Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, where he co-chaired the Patient Safety Committee.  Currently, in addition to serving on the SOSM Executive Committee, Dan is a member of the Council on Immigrant Child and Family Health, serving on its Publications Review Committee.  Dan has been a lead author of 6 AAP policy statements and a clinical practice guideline.  He served various editorial roles on AAP Grand Rounds for 18 years and is currently on several other journal editorial boards.  In 2016, Dan received the Elizabeth M. Leistikow Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership in the Promotion of Evidence Based Pediatrics from the AAP Section on Epidemiology, Public Health and Evidence. Dan has published research on sudden death, impacts of parental substance use, racism and child health, outpatient safety, and most recently on the experiences of pediatricians in the Holocaust. He now lives in San Miguel de Allende, México, where he advocates for migrant families.