Spotlight on Nicola Chin, MD, FAAP
By Dr. Terri McFadden-Garden and Amy Erickson
October 2024
Dr. Nicola Chin — a pediatrician at Morehouse Healthcare, clinical practice of Morehouse School of Medicine, and the newly elected President of the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (GA AAP) — has long been a passionate advocate for early literacy and child health. Her dedication to Reach Out and Read, coupled with her leadership in the broader pediatric community, reflects her commitment to shaping a brighter future for children across Georgia. Dr. Chin has implemented the Reach Out and Read model since 1995, and, last year, hosted a site visit for Amy Erickson (Reach Out and Read Georgia Executive Director) and Marty Martinez (Reach Out and Read National CEO) to highlight the program in action.
Dr. Chin’s journey into pediatrics was shaped by her early exposure to service in her home country of Jamaica. As a child, she accompanied her mother to their Catholic church, where they would assist community members and neighbors in need, an experience that ignited Dr. Chin’s desire to become a doctor and a life of service. Dr. Chin’s connection to Reach Out and Read began during a state conference of the GA AAP, where she was deeply inspired by Dr. Avril Beckford’s presentation on the program. “It opened my eyes to the importance of integrating literacy into pediatric care. Now, it’s a core tenet of my practice,” says Dr. Chin. Having experienced the transformative power of early exposure to books in her own upbringing, she recognizes the significant role literacy plays in shaping a child’s cognitive and emotional development.
As a strong advocate for literacy in underprivileged communities, Dr. Chin emphasizes that programs like Reach Out and Read are essential in bridging the educational gap. For Dr. Chin, the Reach Out and Read program isn’t just about promoting literacy; it’s about ensuring that all children have equal opportunities to succeed. “When we as pediatricians take just 30 seconds to open a book and engage with a child, we’re modeling for parents how to do the same at home,” Dr. Chin says. “It takes pediatric care to a higher level,” she adds, knowing that these moments create lasting connections between the child, the parent, and their health care provider.
As the current President of the GA AAP, Dr. Chin is a driving force for legislative advocacy around early childhood health and literacy. She views her role as one that connects communities, policymakers, and pediatric primary care leaders in Georgia. “If literacy is embedded in legislation, then every child has access to the Reach Out and Read intervention, to books, to lifechanging strategies — not just those who are fortunate enough to be in certain circumstances,” she says. Dr. Chin believes in using her platform to advocate for policies that will improve access to Reach Out and Read on a larger scale.
Spotlight from Dr. Robert Needlman
July 2024
Residency, like infancy, is a time when experiences have a special power to restructure the brain. As a third-year resident, I attended the Annual Meeting of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics which was in Boston that year. I remember nothing of the conference, except the feeling that it was so cool to spend three days at a hotel thinking about child development in the company of brilliant and committed colleagues.
I hope that the residents who attended the Reach Out and Read Leadership Conference in May came away with the same excitement at having found a professional community. Some 36 residents submitted applications. Reading them I was reminded of “Millions of Cats”: Each one seemed more wonderful than the last.
In person, the energy and intellectual quickness of the selected few came into sharper focus. They had questions; and they had ideas, about Reach Out and Read for families facing special adversity, but also about Reach Out and Read in suburban settings, and in subspecialty settings. I got the sense, too, that they were paying close attention to us older folk, and I like to think that we responded to their scrutiny the way Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel did— by digging harder and faster.
Having the resident leaders at the May meeting was surely a gift to the organization, showing us that Reach Out and Read has room to grow in diverse directions and the youthful passion that will take us into the future.
Clinician Spotlight: Pamela Chung
April 2024
Dr. Pamela Chung, the Medical Director for Reach Out and Read Texas, first learned about Reach Out and Read in a rural health center near the Texas panhandle. She had done her medical school training and her residency in family medicine in Canada, then moved to Texas and found herself at a clinic where her practice was about 50 percent children. One of her colleagues, an NP who was familiar with ROR, told her: “You’ve never heard of ROR; you’re from Canada; I need you to do the online training so we can sign up for it.” Reach Out and Read gave Dr. Chung a new model for how to relate to the families she cared for, creating bonds with the child, the parents, the whole family. “It turned into a really lovely relationship with the families. We based our interactions on talking about the times kids were in their laps, how they were relating, how the family was doing.”
After three years at that clinic, Dr. Chung moved to Houston; she is now Associate Program Director of the Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program. Bringing ROR to that residency clinic became her pet project, and she was able to get the program up and running within her first year there. This year, the clinic celebrated giving out their 3000th book.
Dr. Chung has enjoyed lobbying at the state capital as ROR Medical Director for Texas: “I get to take a passion project and explain how it relates to legislative work — and I’ll step out of my comfort zone to go to the capitol for a day because it is a passion project.” She speaks with enthusiasm about the diversity of practices in Texas and of the skill that Affiliate Director Jocelyn McConnell, MEd, has shown in bringing such a large state together.
She is also passionate about crafting — sewing, cross stitch, quilting — and gets together with fellow physicians from all specialties to make small pieced quilts for NICU babies.
As a family physician, Dr. Chung is often the doctor for the parents and family members as well as the child. She reflected on one family: She cared for the pregnant mother, partnering for prenatal visits with the physician who would handle the delivery. She also gave the mother a book and talked with an older sibling. Dr. Chung said that books “make such a comfortable way to ask about the whole family, without changing focus — it all just seems to roll together: I remember when you were reading to baby in the womb. It becomes a shared memory with the whole family, but it also opens discussion about the family: to ask mom how her mental health is or how the older sibling is integrating.” That’s her family medicine perspective on Reach Out and Read — that it offers a comfortable way to discuss the family structure and to think about the ways that other people fit into the family environment, all centered around books and reading