Inside Pediatrics Spring/Summer 2026

CARDIOLOGY

Building a Team Around Pulmonary Hypertension

To better manage care for patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH), Children’s of Alabama is using a coordinated approach that brings together multiple disciplines on one team. The team consists of pediatric cardiologist Frank Bennett Pearce, M.D.; pediatric cardiac critical care specialists Ahmad Khalil, M.D., and Matthew Clark, M.D.; pediatric cardiology fellow Kevin Wall, M.D.; and pediatric cardiology nurse specialist Jodie Kanaday, RN. Together, they round weekly on patients with PH to determine the best course of action for this rare but complex condition. “We wanted to improve communication by having us all together saying the same thing to the consultant teams and to the families,” Pearce said. That consistency matters, especially when care unfolds over weeks or months. From a cardiology standpoint, PH has always been part of the landscape, Pearce said. “A lot of the treatment and diagnostic procedures, such as catheterizations and echocardiograms, come through cardiology anyway,” he said. “So we end up being the treating doctors in lots of cases, or at least consultants.” At the same time, many of the sickest patients are in neonatal and pediatric intensive care units and managed by critical care specialists.

Bringing these disciplines together as one team allows for better decision-making. PH is typically treated with medications such as pulmonary vasodilators regardless of cause, but timing and diagnosis matter. That’s why it’s important to have a precise anatomic diagnosis before starting medication, Pearce said. In babies with bronchopulmonary dysplasia, for instance, PH may be driven by acquired pulmonary vein stenosis—a condition that requires catheter-based or surgical intervention before medication. Previously, decisions like these might have been made in parallel by different services. Now, they are made together. The team manages about a dozen inpatient pulmonary hypertension cases each month on inpatients at Children’s and the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) and also provides support once the patient has been discharged.

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH

Group Therapy Playing a Crucial Role in the Mental Health Crisis In a time when many adolescents are struggling, assistance from behavioral health providers is in

environment that is perceived as being more comfortable and more relatable than individual therapy.” For many participants, the experience can be surprising. “What we hear consistently is, ‘I thought I would hate it, but now I love it—it’s the best thing that ever happened,’” Patterson said. Parents can be equally impressed when they see their children using the skills they’ve learned in therapy. Group therapy also gives providers a chance to see their patients through a new lens. “It almost lets you be a fly on the wall or gives you more insight into their day-to-day interactions,” Patterson said.

high demand. Seeing all patients in a timely manner can be challenging. But for some providers, including the Children’s of Alabama behavioral health team, group therapy is showing promising results as an effective—and efficient—way to help the many patients who need their support. Group therapy is nothing new—Children’s has been offering it for years. For adolescents in particular, it has great potential. “Pediatric patients really tend to respond well to the social aspect of a group,” said Debra Patterson, Ph.D., director of Psychology and Associated Services at Children’s. “We do know, especially among early teens and adolescents, one of the things that makes them tick is to compare themselves to peers, as opposed to parents.” In group therapy, a young person can get this. Instead of sitting in a room with a parent and a therapist—as they would in individual therapy—they’re working with five to 10 of their peers and maybe only two adults. “So it creates, for a pediatric population, an

The group context is also more efficient than individual therapy. For example, Children’s offers a focused pain coping group. By offering this in a group setting, a therapist can see and help five patients at once instead of just one. “In other words, we increase that provider’s ability to provide services by 500%, which is enormous,” Patterson said. “And these kids leave that group doing well and having all the skills that they need, just as if they had sat one-on-one.” Group therapy is not for everyone, though, Patterson says. In some cases, a patient might need individual therapy first. In others, the type of group a patient needs might not be available. Age is also a consideration. But for those who go through it, group therapy can produce the same results as individual therapy. “What the research is telling us,” Patterson said, “is that group therapy is as effective and is equivalent to individual therapies for a really wide range of diagnoses.”

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Inside Pediatrics | Children’s of Alabama