Northwest/Pacific Regional Chapter

Our chapter is unique in that it covers one of the largest geographic regions in our Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii. We are dedicated to the mission of SAHM in that we strive to provide a forum for health care professionals whose passion it is to provide care for and serve adolescents.

Not only do we meet regularly at the annual SAHM meeting, our almost 40 member group has been networking through email, monthly community focused educational conferences, and teleconferencing on patient care issues, health advocacy, educating new health professionals interested in adolescents and strategic planning to keep public health funded programs viable.Our group is diverse; we include social workers, nutritionists, nurses, nurse practitioners and physician assistants, psychologist and physicians.

Research interest in the group includes adolescent depression screening in primary care, condom use in adolescents, papilloma virus E6 proteins, complementary and alternative medicine in adolescents including biofeedback, yoga and herbs, long term inpatient eating disorder outcomes, mental health outcomes in teens, substance abuse interventions, transition to adult medical home models and health in the incarcerated juvenile population. This year the conference focus is “Sports Medicine and the Adolescent Athlete” and our meeting will revolve around the Lynn Staheli Annual Orthopedic Conference at Seattle Children’s Jan 24 2009.

The 2008 SAHM Regional Chapter Recognition Award was Wayne Sells, MD, MPH, FSAHM from Oregon Health Sciences University. Wayne will be recognized for this award during our session at the SAHM annual meeting in Los Angeles in Mar 2009.

The Northwest/Pacific SAHM members who come to the conference will meet to discuss our strategic plans and future conferences/ opportunities for networking over the next 5 years. We always welcome new members and are interested in growing and expanding our focus to ensure that the adolescents in our great community are well cared for!

For information contact:
Regional Chapter President Cora Collette Breuner, MD, MPH
cora.breuner@seattlechildrens.org
(206) 987-2028