Sheela Magge, director of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes, provides an overview of the division, the care of diabetes patients and their families, research innovations and why she is honored to care for patients at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
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Mhm. The division of pediatric endocrinology and diabetes at johns Hopkins is the birthplace of pediatric endocrinology. Lawson Wilkins was the first pediatric endocrinologist and he started here. His trainees went on to spread pediatric endocrinology practice all over the world. In our division. We continue the tripartite Hopkins mission of dedicated compassionate and evidence based clinical care as well as high impact and innovative research and training the next generation of pediatric endocrinologists. Mm hmm. So yes, we have a comprehensive multidisciplinary diabetes center. We see type one diabetes, type two diabetes as well as many of the less common forms of diabetes. And although so by and large, the vast majority of Children who have diabetes have Type one diabetes but with more and more issues related to excess weight during childhood. We're seeing more and more Type two diabetes, which is the type that we previously almost always saw in adults. And so what we do um we bring any child with diabetes into our center. We have a multidisciplinary team, the diabetes clinician, a nutritionist, behavioral psychologist, social workers, physical therapy to work and address the needs of that individual patient. Now, type two diabetes during childhood has been shown to it appears to be more aggressive when it occurs during childhood compared to when it occurs during adulthood. And so I think it's really important that we intervene early. And so we do definitely want to see patients who have pre diabetes so that we can address the problems earlier and try to prevent progression to full blown diabetes. I started as division director in January of 2018 and we have been growing our clinical practice. We've been growing in in Baltimore by seeing more patients and also to Bethesda Maryland and Columbia Maryland. Seeing all patients allows us to serve the community better. It also allows us to expand our clinical research and provides educational opportunities for our trainees. So we have several exciting things going on in the division um first in our diabetes center. So all of our patients with diabetes are referred once a year to see an ophthalmologist to screen for diabetic retinopathy. One of our providers dr Reese a wolf. Um she received an innovation grant from the Children's Center and she is going to use a non patriotic fund. This camera in clinic which will take pictures of the back of the eyes and will be evaluated by our ophthalmologist. And that will allow to screen for diabetic retinopathy without a family having to go to another appointment at the ophthalmologist. My own research um I'm currently starting a project funded by the NIH looking at the effects of body composition, racial background and other risk factors how those affect your risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. There are many useful technologies available for the care of diabetes are patients with Type one diabetes often use pumps, continuous glucose monitors and our providers are well versed in their utilization. I think the thing I'm most proud of our the people. There are a group of incredibly talented and compassionate faculty who are trying to optimize the care of Children everywhere I'm not.