"We prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be."
Robin McKinney ’98 I Collaborative Pediatric Physician & Researcher
"I really respect when the focus is on working for the best benefit of a given patient, regardless of personal glory or personal cost.” Robin McKinney ‘98 is a pediatric physician at Hasbro’s Children’s Hospital, spending his days in the pediatric intensive care unit. Robin has also undertaken a variety of important research projects with Brown University, focusing on children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a common and sorely under-researched chronic lung disease impacting children born very prematurely, between 23-32 weeks.
Neonatal intensive care doctors and researchers have made great strides in preventing BPD, but with a focus on prevention, an urgent question remains: what is the best model of care for patients who have BPD? “What I discovered when I finished all my training is BPD was a neglected disease. This is a completely untouched field.” A group of senior physicians from around the country recognized this neglected area of research and formed a unique collaborative of children's hospitals around the country of which Brown is a founding member. “We all got together and said this is a problem we should study.”
The first task of the collaborative has been to define the problem. “If you don’t know what the problem is, how are you going to fix it?” Robin has a specialized focus on lungs and ventilators and has been researching the long term outcomes of children with BPD and the best way to ventilate those patients. “There is really nothing out there on severe BPD, so this is the first step. There is nothing written about it and there is not even a consensus guideline for expert opinion. It’s a jumping off point for designing what to do next.” Robin has also become interested in cutting edge technology on how best to support a severely premature infant who has developed severe BPD. He is currently working with another center in Philadelphia on a crossover trial of kids with BPD who are using either a conventional ventilator or a new technology called NAVA. “It’s FDA approved to use in kids, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. Knowing either way is significant.”
The cooperative nature of the research collaborative echoes the Quaker values that Robin recalls from his years at the School. “Coming together and thinking about things that are greater than oneself and putting that forward is really embodied in the Friends spirit. It’s one of the great things about this collaborative. It’s a whole lot of smart, academic people who have gotten together and said let’s share everything, let’s pool our shared knowledge. We’ll all be better if we work together.” And, indeed, that is what the research is showing. “Kids taken care of with a shared model of interdisciplinary rounds did better.”
Robin is working toward a future where there is a body of research to help inform care for pediatric patients. “To me, it’s very obvious. The time to intervene and the time to really change the world lies with our kids. They are, by and large, free of bias and full of optimism and if you nurture that, they will have an enormous impact. Invest a little in kids and the sky's the limit.”
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Friends Seminary — the oldest continuously operated, coeducational school in NYC — serves college-bound day students in Kindergarten-Grade 12.
