On the front lines: Terry Adirim, MD, MPH.

As interim director of emergency medicine at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, PA, every day Dr. Terry Adirim sees first-hand the high cost of obesity.

"I'm on the front lines," she says. "Where I work in north Philadelphia, many children presenting to my department are overweight. I regularly counsel families on the health risks of being overweight."

Some of these young emergency-room patients already show signs of Type II diabetes, and many others are at risk of developing the condition. The root cause? Poor eating habits and insufficient activity, says Adirim.

So, it's not surprising to learn that Adirim herself runs as much as a busy schedule allows. And she encourages her own children to stay active. Her 12-year-old son joined his school's cross country team this year and her daughter runs and plays sports, as well.

Growing up in Miami, Florida, Terry Adirim wasn't much of an athlete. "But there weren't a lot of sports for girls at the time," she explains. Adirim ran "a little" when in her teens and twenties, but it wasn't until the birth of her daughter seven years ago, that she took up running in earnest.

Once she started running, Adirim decided "almost immediately" that she wanted to compete in a marathon. She joined a training program though the Montgomery County Road Runners in Maryland. Less than a year after she began running, she felt ready for her first marathon. Today, she has seven complete marathons to her credit, and two marathon relays--but describes herself as a "social runner" more than a competitor.

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Already a doctor (MD, University of Miami School of Medicine, 1991), when she took up running, Adirim became a fellow in primary care sports medicine in 2000 and for years worked as an attending physician in both sports medicine and emergency medicine at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. While a fellow in sports medicine, a colleague introduced her to AMAA and encouraged her to attend her first AMAA event, the annual symposium in Washington, D.C.

She also found a way to combine her interest in sports and emergency medicine after hours--by volunteering medical support at races and other sporting events. Adirim served four years as medical director for the Marathon in the Parks hosted each November by the Montgomery County Road Runners Club. She was also medical director for the inaugural Washington, D.C. Marathon in 2002.

When the D.C. Divas--a professional woman's football team--needed a new team physician in 2002, they turned to Adirim. She worked with the team through 2004, when she relocated to Philadelphia. "The players had experienced a lot of ACL tears," remembers Adirim. "But with better conditioning, we saw fewer injuries." During the same period, she also made time to serve as team physician for the Wootton High School football team in Rockville, Maryland.

Other volunteers stints have included working as a medical volunteer for the Special Olympics, the Nike Invitational track meet, the Army 10-Mile Race, the Rockville Twilight Runfest and as director of the AED/Lay Responder program of the Montgomery County Road Runner's Club for four years.

But for Adirim working on "the front lines" doesn't just mean working with patients and athletes, it means research. As principal investigator/project director, she has received grants to study emergency medical services for children with special needs (Health Resources and Services Administration) and the neuropsychological impact of heading in soccer (Centers for Disease Control). In addition to writing on pediatrics and emergency medicine, Adirim's publications include sports medicine articles and abstracts on injuries in the young athlete, exercise-assisted collapse, sudden cardiac death in athletes, sports and exercise in children with disabilities, and neuropsychological assessment of concussions in soccer.

Adirim brings all this experience to the classroom. Since moving to Philadelphia, she has taught classes in emergency medicine and pediatrics as an associate professor at the Drexel University School of Medicine. Previously, she taught at George Washington University (GWU) School of Medicine and Health Sciences, GWU School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Uniform Services University of the Health Sciences, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Currently, she oversees the work of residents and fellows studying physical activity in urban youth, orthopedic sports injuries, resuscitation education, and pediatric trauma patients.

"I really enjoy educating patients and trainees," says Adirim. "A lot of what I do is advocacy through different venues."

In addition to speaking in front of professional audiences in hospitals and at national conferences, Adirim has addressed lay audiences through appearances on radio and television--on topics ranging from bicycle helmet safety to peanut allergies to winter sports injuries--and in articles for the public in Parent Magazine, Virginia Parent News, Washington Parent, Washington Times and others.

In an article Adirim wrote for Sports Medicine (2003; 33(1):75-81), she reported that an increase of youth participation in organized sports has coincided with an increase in acute and overuse injuries. Adirim wrote: "Emergency department visits are highest among the school age to young adult population. More than one-third of school-age children will sustain an injury severe enough to be treated by a doctor or nurse. The yearly costs have been estimated to be as high as $1.8 billion."

Certainly, through her professional work and her service to the public, Terry Adirim works to address this critical need: Educating the public to reduce the number of children requiring emergency care services, as well as improving care for those unfortunate patients who end up in the emergency room.

Ed. note: At press time AMAA Journal staff learned that Terry Adirim has been selected as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Says Adirim: "I want to learn how health policy is made and to advise those making the policy, using the knowledge I have gained while working in academia." She will move to the Washington, D.C., area in summer 2006 after being placed in a federal agency.