Jonathan Gold, MD, Receives First Swindell Child Advocacy Award
October 3, 2024
When they met at a Washington, D.C., conference several years ago, Sharon Swindell and Jonathan Gold realized they had much in common. Both were pediatricians practicing in Michigan, medical school faculty members, and passionate advocates for children.
“We should keep in touch,” she said.
And they did. Gold, MD, now an associate professor in the College of Human Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and Human Development, had taken over an annual legislative advocacy workshop from a colleague. Eventually, he and Swindell, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, teamed up to grow the workshop into an annual Legislative Advocacy Day in Lansing, teaching residents, medical students, and others how to influence legislators on issues affecting children.
Their partnership ended earlier this year with Swindell’s death from cancer. Five months later, in September, the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics presented Gold its first Sharon Swindell Child Advocate Award.
“Quite honestly, it’s bittersweet,” Gold said. “It’s wonderful for her to be recognized, but it’s bittersweet for me. I feel she is the reason I’m able to do what I do, because she taught me.”
Swindell was past president of the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (MIAAP) and a fierce advocate for children. Before she died, she asked that in memoriam donations be made to the MIAAP’s Natalia Tanner Scholarship, which pays to send medical students and residents to Washington for an annual advocacy day.
Gold has led MIAAP’s Advocacy Committee for years. He joined MSU in 2001 and, among other duties, directs the college’s pediatric residency child advocacy curriculum.
“Dr. Gold has long been recognized as a visionary leader in advocacy for children, and I do not think it would have been possible to choose a more deserving recipient of this award,” said Keith English, MD, chair of the Department of Pediatrics and Human Development. “Dr. Gold leads by example and serves as a role model for our medical students and pediatric residents.”
The first advocacy training session a decade and a half ago drew about 10 resident physicians. Since then, it has grown to nearly 100 each year. Each training session focuses on an issue affecting children, and the attendees, broken into smaller groups, are urged to pick another issue they feel strongly about.
“Advocacy is about passion,” Gold said. “If you’re not passionate, you don’t have as much impact. If you want to be an effective physician, you have to be aware of the social determinants of health. You have to think beyond the office.”
Over the years, the advocates have met with state legislators and their aides to urge action on social media, mental health, tobacco and vaping, nutrition, and car safety seats. The latter was a long-term goal of Gold’s and Swindell’s to bring Michigan’s car safety seat law into line with the tougher federal standards.
Early this year, the Legislature finally passed the bill, and on March 28 Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed it into law.
“I was very relieved,” Gold said. “It was like, well, we finally did it.”
By then, Swindell was very ill and no longer able to participate. “I didn’t realize how ill,” Gold said.
She sent him an email congratulating him. He wrote back but received no response.
On April 15, Swindell died.
“She was a wonderful woman,” Gold said. “She was a wonderful colleague, a mentor to me.
“The way I’m trying to carry on her work is by creating successors to me for the work. I want to make certain that others carry on the tradition. I think the thing that I’ve accomplished, if anything, is to train future advocates, that they’ll go on and do wonderful things for kids.”
By Pat Shellenbarger
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