Issue link: http://kusm-wichita.uberflip.com/i/781935
16 ASTHMA CAUSES IS ONE OF THE LEADING OF SCHOOL ABSENTEEISM Sid Sivamurthy, M.D., Pediatrics Assistant Professor, began a specialty asthma clinic three years ago. Their ultimate goal is to empower the patient to take control of the asthma, enough so that they no longer need the clinic's care. "I see my role as counselor instead of as a physician in the traditional sense," Sivamurthy said. "I involve residents and medical students in what I do because I want them to watch and learn and create their own way of dealing with these patients and issues," he said. "They get very good exposure to inpatient care for asthma. But this is another facet of treatment for that same disease, which is just as important if not more so. We want to prevent kids from going to the hospital." The clinics couldn't operate without the backing of his colleagues and the KU School of Medicine-Wichita, he said. "I've got fantastic support from my chair, my department, clinic management ... I could never do this as a private pediatrician." "This fits into the concept of a medical home. A family of patients and providers who know each other well, who understand each other's thinking and are able to improve care," Sivamurthy said. "Patient satisfaction comes not from more medications, more interventions. It comes from having someone they trust and can approach. That relationship is priceless." ourselves to think about asthma from a patient's perspective. Our vision is to get good control of the condition, but also educate patients." Environmental factors — smoking, pets, dust mites — are emphasized ahead of medications. A family probably doesn't need to get rid of an allergy-inducing pet, but they should keep the animal out of the child's room, he said. That can dramatically reduce the effect of that asthma trigger. We teach them that not controlling the asthma means their child is going to miss school and they are going to miss work. That increases stress within the family and also has physical and emotional costs for everyone — and academic consequences for the child. Even when a patient is diligent and motivated, managing asthma isn't easy. Dr. Sid Sivamurthy, KU Wichita Pediatrics assistant professor, was seeing too many kids with repeated hospitalizations for the condition, and wanted to find solutions. He began a specialty asthma clinic three years ago in response to that need. "We want to care for kids with moderate- ly severe asthma, particularly those who have to repeatedly go to the ER or even be hospitalized," Sivamurthy said. "This asthma clinic is a way to plug that gap." To make the clinic a reality, he became a certified asthma educator and put together a team of two nurses and a medical assistant. "Together, we trained . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Asthma clinician's goal : keep kids out of hospital PEDIATRICS KU WICHITA