Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital

Infinite Possibilities 2007-2012: Strategic Plan

Goal 3: Innovating and excelling in teaching and learning

Bringing developmental pediatrics to Jamaica

For more than ten years Bloorview Kids Rehab has been training developmental pediatricians yielding graduates who are practicing all over the world.

Sharon Smile, a pediatrician from Jamaica, is currently enrolled in the two-year University of Toronto program, based at Bloorview.

“As a pediatrician, I’m trained to know concrete pathology. But kids with disabilities are so intricate. No two are the same. They're unpredictable and always changing,” says Sharon.  “You can’t learn about them in a textbook or in medical school. You need hands-on interaction in a rehab hospital like Bloorview.”

The program, which recently became an accredited sub-specialty of pediatrics under the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, is aimed at fostering an understanding and promoting the best development of infants, children and youth and their families through clinical care, education, research and advocacy.

The sub-specialty focuses on developmental trajectories of children with congenital or acquired disorders and individual variations in physical, motor, cognitive, sensory and social-emotional development, as well as children’s behavioural response to those challenges. Overall, the goal is to promote and maintain development and emotional well being. 

“Because we don’t have services like speech or occupational therapy, I need to grasp the ins and outs of these therapies so I can provide families with tools they can use,” says Sharon. “Most children with developmental disabilities are sheltered at home in Jamaica. One of my goals will be to change that.”

Bloorview’s developmental pediatrics program includes clinical time assessing and treating children with a wide range of disabilities in Bloorview’s child development program and two satellite clinics; rotations at the Hospital for Sick Children in areas like child psychiatry, neonatal follow-up, neurology and genetics; and research.

Before choosing developmental pediatrics as her focus, Sharon took electives in the United States and Canada. “I was impressed with the Canadian approach which was more holistic and team-based,” says Sharon. “Children and families are multi-faceted. The pathology is just one part of the overall picture of the child. How do they think? How do they socialize? How do they communicate? You have to be able to link all of these areas together and come up with a holistic plan.”

When she returns to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica in the summer of 2009, Sharon will be one of two developmental pediatricians for the entire island of Jamaica, a population of 2.5 million people. “I want to use the expertise I gain at Bloorview to empower the kids and families I see back home.”