Pitt Pediatrics is excited to announce that Laura Kirkpatrick, MD, recently received notice of award for her K23 grant from the NIH. Kirkpatrick is an Assistant Professor in our Division of Neurology and Child Development, as well as Associate Director of Child Neurology Clinical Research. She has also successfully created and led two new programs in the division over the last few years: the Adult Transition Epilepsy Clinic (in partnership with Adult Neurology) and the Epilepsy and Adolescent Medicine Clinic (with Adolescent Medicine). Kirkpatrick has been successful in securing numerous research grants, developed new courses and teaching products, and has mentored many students and residents since joining the faculty. 
This funded project, titled, “Counseling Adolescents about Reproductive Health and Epilepsy (CARE): Optimization and Feasibility Testing of a Multi-Level Intervention” aims to address the communication gap between neurology clinicians and reproductive-age youth with epilepsy (RAYE) about their reproductive health relative to their treatment plans for epilepsy. Certain antiseizure medications (ASMs) can adversely affect fetal development as well as the effectiveness of some contraceptives, demonstrating the importance of these conversations that, according to Kirkpatrick’s research, are either omitted by the clinician or miscommunicated.
In order to address this challenge, Kirkpatrick developed a prototype of a multi-level intervention called Counseling Adolescents about Reproductive Health and Epilepsy (CARE). CARE aims to combine three distinct functions for increased reproductive care for this patient demographic: 1) child neurology clinician online counseling skills training, 2) follow-up Short Messaging Service (SMS) messages for RAYE, and 3) SMS messages for caregivers to empower them to reinforce healthy behaviors.
Join us in celebrating Dr. Kirkpatrick’s award and ongoing growth towards an independent clinical researcher. We are very excited to see the results of this project over the coming years.
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