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March 10 Webinar: Addressing Healthcare Disparities in Pediatric Epilepsy – The Time is Now!


Thursday, March 10 (5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST)

Link: https://vimeo.com/event/1410950/ea786eb9f1


Session Organizer:

Gogi Kumar, MD, FAES
Associate Professor
Dayton Children’s Hospital
Dayton, Ohio


Course Description:

The objective of the symposium is to highlight the existence of health and healthcare disparities in pediatric epilepsy in the U.S. that affect access, evaluation, management,
and epilepsy/psychosocial outcomes. We also aim to propose solutions to decrease inequity by incorporating equity as a central value in our quality, safety, and patient experience metrics.


Topics & Speakers:

The roles of race and socioeconomic status in the delivery of equitable care in pediatric epilepsy in the US
Belinda Oyinkan Marquis, MD
Assistant Professor of Pediatric Neurology
Weill Cornell Medicine
New York, NY

Unravelling the roles of ethnicity, nativity, language and immigration status in pediatric epilepsy health and healthcare disparities
Karen Skjei, MD
Director, El Paso Center for Seizures and Epilepsy
El Paso, Texas

Care redesign to improve equity via the use of telehealth – Opportunities and Challenges
Charuta Joshi, MBBS, FAES
Professor, Child Neurology
University of Texas Southwestern, School of Medicine, Children’s Medical Centre
Dallas, TX


Speaker & Organizer Brief Biographies

Gogi Kumar, MD, FAES
Dr Kumar is an Associate Professor and Division Chief of Neurology at Dayton Children’s Hospital, Dayton, Ohio. She completed her pediatric neurology at Cohen Children’s Hospital, NY and her neurophysiology training at Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Her clinical and research interests include intractable epilepsy and care redesign centered on providing high value equitable care for children with neurological disorders.

Oyinkan Marquis, MD
Dr. Marquis is an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Neurology and Epilepsy at Weill Cornell Medical Center. She completed her pediatric neurology training at NYU Langone Medical Center and clinical neurophysiology training at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Dr. Marquis is Co-Director of the resident’s Pediatric Neurology clinic and a Faculty Scholar in Health Equity. Her clinical and didactic teaching focuses on teaching residents and students about diversity, social determinants of health, and health equity. In addition, she has a longitudinal interest in patient advocacy, community health, and global health. Her work is focused on developing and advancing health equity research, access to healthcare, improving outcomes, and reducing health disparities in pediatric epilepsy.

Karen Skjei, MD
Dr. Karen Skjei serves as chair of the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium’s Committee on Health Equity. A former Peace Corps volunteer, she attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, followed by a Pediatric Neurology residency at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. She completed a two-year fellowship in Clinical Neurophysiology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, then served as Director of Pediatric Epilepsy at the University of Louisville/Norton Children’s Hospital for seven years. In 2019 she moved to Texas to serve as the Director of Clinical Neurophysiology at the University of Texas-Austin’s Dell Medical School. In 2021 she founded the El Paso Center for Seizures and Epilepsy, with a mission to make outstanding pediatric neurology care accessible to all children in the El Paso region, regardless of English proficiency, health insurance status or ability to pay.

Charuta Joshi, MBBS, FAES
Dr Charuta Joshi is board certified in pediatric neurology in both Canada and the United States, clinical neurophysiology (Canada) and epilepsy (United States). She did her pediatric neurology training in New York Presbyterian Hospital and clinical neurophysiology fellowship at Children’s Hospital Michigan. She is presently a Professor in Pediatric Neurology at University of Texas Southwestern, School of Medicine, Children’s Medical Centre, Dallas and holds the Dr Roy D. and Ragan S Elterman Distinguished Chair in Pediatric Epilepsy. She is the Program Director of Advanced EEG and Epilepsy Research Fellowship. She has worked in resource rich as well as resource limited countries and is interested in global health, developmental and epileptic encephalopathies, surgical and non-surgical therapy (ketogenic diet, neuromodulation) of medically intractable epilepsies. She participates in clinical trials for children with medically intractable epilepsy.


NOTE: All CNS live-streamed webinars will be posted on the CNS website (“Craft” section), usually within one week of original presentation. The first five previously recorded webinars will be posted later this week.