Friend To All Pediatricians :

If you are a general pediatrician, in some way, Dr Bob Haggerty influenced how you practice medicine. This January Dr Haggerty passed away, leaving quite a legacy, including Chair of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, advocate for ambulatory care and child health, 1984 president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, 1998 recipient of the American Pediatric Society Howland Award, and founding Editor-in-Chief of Pediatrics in Review. Bob accomplished even more, but I want to call attention to his love of general pediatrics and for the people who practiced it, not just in academics but in the community; in private practice and free clinics; in rural, urban and suburban settings; in the nation; and in the world. As pediatricians we love and care for children, but in my encounters with him, I observed that deep down, Bob also empathized with all general pediatricians, understood their compassion for children but also their stress of daily practice, the demands on personal time, their coping with exhaustion, and their difficulty with keeping up-to-date on the ever-increasing knowledge of pediatrics. I believe his empathy was the driving force behind his creation of Pediatrics in Review, for convincing colleagues in academia and in community practice to collaborate to develop topics for a journal that would “…help improve child health by providing information useful to those professionals who provide health services to children.”¹ To protect the purpose of the journal, Dr Haggerty positioned general pediatricians from academia and the private community as part of the editorial board who would serve to verify that what was published was pertinent, readable, evidence-based, concise, and practical. He also enlisted pediatric subspecialists who embraced the concept of the journal and who recognized the importance of general pediatricians as colleagues. Without question Dr Haggerty created camaraderie among all the pediatricians on the board through the years. When he stepped down as Editor-in-Chief, it was again with empathy that Dr Haggerty endorsed Dr Larry Nazarian, a local practicing general pediatrician, as the new Editor-in-Chief of Pediatrics in Review. The result of such empathy is a pediatric continuing education journal that is close to 40 years of age and has the largest readership in the world. Throughout his life, Dr Haggerty was an advocate for children, but he was also a mentor and friend to all pediatricians.

1. Haggerty RJ. Editorial Pediatrics in Review. Pediatrics in Review, Jul 1979, 1 (1) 3