Health Care for Children Tops the Agenda for Dr. Carol Berkowitz, Class of '65, as New President of American Academy of Pediatrics
 "Even on the worst day, somebody takes your hand, or leans over and says your name and gives you a kiss," says pediatrician Carol Berkowitz, MD. Not everyone can say that about a day at work, but Berkowitz, the newly elected 2004-2005 president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, has never forgotten why she became a pediatrician in the first place or for whom she is working.
Berkowitz, who is 60, has been practicing medicine since the late '60s. She initially hesitated to accept the AAP's nomination because of the demands of the position. "It's almost a full-time job. You spend 170 days on the road," she says.
But when she considered that "you're advocating on behalf of children--children who can't vote, who have no voice in the government policy decisions that affect them," she knew she had to do it, and subsequently defeated another physician candidate for the post, beginning her term on October 12 this year. Women can't complain about having no power if they're unwilling to serve, she adds.
Her highest priority is access to health care for the nine million uninsured children in the United States. "Two-thirds of these are eligible for some type of program but either their parents don't know about it or the states have run out of money," she says.
Berkowitz says the Academy won't be able to solve the problem of uninsured children completely during her term. Her challenge is to address disparities of health care for children and fight further program cuts. "Minority children don't receive the same health care as other children," she says.
The proportion of women in pediatrics has increased to the point where men are the minority of the profession. (According to the AAP's 2003 records, 44.8 percent of practicing pediatricians are male and 65.2 percent are female.)
"But that doesn't mean women's concerns are being addressed," says Berkowitz. "For example, there are still barriers to part-time work. Should the Academy promote childcare in the workplace or childcare in hospitals?"
Her top priority as president will be to develop the kind of agenda for children that European nations and Canada already have. The agenda she foresees for the United States includes goals and objectives for children's health care, education, welfare and social services. "I'd like to help us create that agenda, and bring together all the agencies that work to promote children's well-being," she says.
Out of a lifelong desire to work with and educate children, Berkowitz entered Barnard in the early 1960s expecting to major in psychology and become a child psychiatrist. But during that time, she says, the focus of psychology was "how many times a rat would press a bar before becoming electrocuted. And I realized I didn't care that much about rats." So she switched to zoology and took many classes in chemistry as well.
"The thing I really loved about Barnard being a women's school was you never had to make a pretense of being dumb," she says. An "open atmosphere, supportive rather than competitive" prevailed, where students could ask questions.
"The quality of work and the excellent teachers we had at Barnard really prepared me well for medical school," she says. Throughout her time at the College, her determination to work with children never wavered. When a chemistry professor advised Berkowitz to go into basic science because in pediatrics, "You're just going to be wiping snotty noses," she responded that she couldn't imagine going into a laboratory every day.
Once she entered the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Berkowitz experienced a nearly complete reversal, an environment with only 10% female students. But she says she found the atmosphere overall welcoming to women.
Berkowitz met her husband David, a gastroenterologist, in medical school, and then did a residency at New York's Roosevelt Hospital. When her husband received a fellowship in gastroenterology at UCLA, the family, which now included daughters Nicole and Ellie, moved to Southern California, where they have lived ever since. Nicole, 34, does marketing/promotions for the small dolls division at Mattel. Ellie, 31, is completing her doctoral dissertation in art history on Latino and Latin American Art.
Berkowitz, who is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, has been a member of the faculty at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and a practicing pediatrician for nearly 27 years. Currently, she is professor and Executive Vice Chair in General and Emergency Pediatrics. She's been teaching long enough to be instructing the children of some of her patients. Teaching first-year medical students is also encouraging because, she says, they are "in medicine for all the right reasons. They're not motivated by money; they want to make the world a better place."
Berkowitz is the third female president of the AAP, the nation's largest pediatric organization, with over 60,000 members. She previously served on the AAP Committee on the Pediatric Workforce, and its subcommittee, Women in Pediatrics. She spent six years on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Pediatrics. Dr. Berkowitz is also the editor of Pediatrics: A Primary Care Approach , a text used by many medical students and residents in their continuity clinics.
— Cynthia Gelper, '84
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