Welcome to Pediatric Safety
… a community for parents and grandparents, and for doctors and nurses and emergency responders, and for teachers and day care staff – basically for ALL the people who care about the health and welfare of kids. We hope this site will help raise awareness of child health and safety issues and provide a place for caregivers to find answers to questions, support when they need it and even learn about some of the new ideas that can (and in some cases are already) making a difference in our kids’ lives. Hopefully we can help each other…and maybe together we make a difference.
Stefanie Zucker: Founder and Managing Editor
Stefanie is President and co-founder of Pediatric Medical and co-founder of the strategy consulting firm Axios Partners and its communications consulting arm, Axios Conversations. After a number of years spent researching the safety issues associated with transporting children on ambulances and talking to numerous people who had dedicated their lives to protecting kids, she found herself looking beyond “safe transport for kids” to all the other problems faced by caregivers today, and became a child health and safety advocate. Not yet a parent (although still hoping for the job one day) she formed Pediatric Safety: a community for everyone who cares about the health and welfare of kids to have a place for open exchange of questions, information and ideas so that they can better protect the children in their care. Stefanie is a graduate of The Wharton School at the University of Penn, and lives with her shih-tzu/bichon fluff-ball Sylvi in Atlanta. She can be reached at Stefanie@pediatricsafety.net
Audra Baumgartner: Senior Editor
Audra is an experienced pharmaceutical marketing professional, aspiring writer, and mother of “always on the go” 20-year old son, Elliott. She has extensive background in diverse disease areas including diabetes, asthma, depression and cancer. Frequently tired but never bored, she has a strong interest in public health fostered by numerous years assessing healthcare trends and implementing global diabetes education programs – as well as by her twenty-year crazy (wild? amazing?) adventure in parenting. In addition to her full-time marketing role at Eli Lilly and Company, she completed a graduate course of study in health policy and health promotion and in May 2016 was awarded a Master of Public Health degree. Audra lives in Indianapolis with her “very patient” husband, Nick. She can be reached at Audra@pediatricsafety.net
Clara Ember: Adjunct Editor
Clara is a lifelong writer who, in 2017, became stepmom to an energetic eight-year-old boy. She has a BA in journalism from the University of Alabama and has written on a variety of subjects including social issues, politics, and music. A yoga practitioner and foodie with a deep passion for health and wellness, she seeks to use her education and experience to help individuals create better lives for themselves and their children. Clara is currently living in Atlanta with her husband and her 80lbs ridgeback mix. She can be reached at Clara@pediatricsafety.net
James Maloney: Technical Consultant
Jim has worked in the Information Technology field for more than twenty year and assists Pediatric Safety with technical issues (which means – time and time again he comes to our rescue). James also devotes time to community service through his local Kiwanis club where he currently serves as the Master of Coin. Through the club he has participated in food drives, cooking for Ronald McDonald house and preparing Thanksgiving meals for home bound senior citizens. He can be reached at t Jim@pediatricsafety.net
In The Beginning: Pediatric Safety
In the late 90’s Stefanie’s sister Suzanne, an EMT, came to her with an idea for the safe transport of young children on ambulances. We won’t go into too much detail about her story – if you like you can read about it in the post “An EMT’s Story” – but basically she had designed a solution to a problem that had been a nightmare for the EMS industry for years. She hoped that with Stefanie’s business background she could help her make it a reality…and Pediatric Medical was born.
It’s been more than 20 years since Suzanne first created crayon drawings of her child ambulance seat. During that time we’ve all learned a lot more about EMS and child safety than we ever imagined – some things that were in fact truly terrifying (like how many children are involved in accidents each year during ambulance transports). Stefanie and Suzanne learned what it was like to be inventors: to find unbelievable support and heartbreaking betrayal, both where you’d never expect it…as well as everything you’d ever want to know (and probably many things you wouldn’t), about the patent process. Much of their journey is documented here.
Stefanie also learned that to make real change happen and start saving some kids lives, this was going to have to be much bigger than ambulance safety. She’d have to go out and look for support and ask ALL the people who care about the health and welfare of kids – the doctors and nurses and emergency responders and teachers and parents – for help. And in doing that, she discovered there was a whole world of child health and safety issues that people wanted to talk about – needed to depend on each other to support them through – and if we worked together, we could make this into something so much more than where we started. She also found Jim and Audra and this past year, Clara – amazing people who believed as she did: that where kids were concerned, “one ouch” was definitely one too many and were willing to devote hearts and minds towards making that a reality.
So at the risk of repeating ourselves, we wish you all a sincere WELCOME TO PEDIATRIC SAFETY – a community for everyone who cares about the health and welfare of kids. We hope this site will help raise awareness of child health and safety issues and provide a community for all caregivers to have an open exchange of questions and ideas. Hopefully together, we can help each other…and maybe, just maybe, we make a difference.
Thanks…Your PedSafe Management Team – Stefanie, Audra, Clara and Jim
