Operation Advocacy: Voices for Children's Health
May 3, 2026 · 39 min · 19 segments
Pediatric surgeon and president of the American Pediatric Surgical Association, Dr. Andrea Hayes-Dixon, discusses why pediatric surgeons advocate and ways that ALL can advocate to improve children’s…
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Um, we advocate every day at work, whether it's calling an insurance company to help with a denial, uh, making sure the pharmacy has the prescription that you've prescribed for your patient before discharge.
Um, one of our, our goals is to generate data that supports policy change, and I think as, uh, physicians and in general, there are a lot of, um, clinical experiences that we have used to create a research idea to-- they then can develop into data that drives policy.
We've seen a lot of that with, uh, reducing firearm injuries, which is now the number one killer of kids in the US, and this is just one of the topics that we'll talk about later in our podcast series.
Um, so a lot of these, uh, we will focus on from the pediatric surgery perspective, but hopefully that our broader listening audience can use that to help advocate and keep our kids safe.
What would you say to someone that says, "What are pediatric surgeons doing in advocacy?" You know, pediatricians do a great job of it.
I think what's different about us is we have a different perspective of the downstream consequences of some things like gun violence, um, traumatic e-bike accidents, four-wheeler accidents, uh, that occur.
And it's different for a surgeon who not only cares for the patient, but actually has his or her hands inside of a patient and restores them to health based on an avoidable accident or an avoidable event.
And pediatricians are great, and doctors and family practitioners, but surgeons have a unique bond with a patient in that we're given the incredible, um, opportunity, and I'm so grateful to each patient for the trust they put in us to take their child, enter a body cavity, repair something, and restore them to health.
That responsibility establishes an emotional connection between the pediatric surgeon and the child that is very, very different from a pediatrician and a child.
Um, we advocate every day at work, whether it's calling an insurance company to help with a denial, uh, making sure the pharmacy has the prescription that you've prescribed for your patient before discharge.
Um, one of our, our goals is to generate data that supports policy change, and I think as, uh, physicians and in general, there are a lot of, um, clinical experiences that we have used to create a research idea to-- they then can develop into data that drives policy.
We've seen a lot of that with, uh, reducing firearm injuries, which is now the number one killer of kids in the US, and this is just one of the topics that we'll talk about later in our podcast series.
Um, so a lot of these, uh, we will focus on from the pediatric surgery perspective, but hopefully that our broader listening audience can use that to help advocate and keep our kids safe.
What would you say to someone that says, "What are pediatric surgeons doing in advocacy?" You know, pediatricians do a great job of it.
I think what's different about us is we have a different perspective of the downstream consequences of some things like gun violence, um, traumatic e-bike accidents, four-wheeler accidents, uh, that occur.
And it's different for a surgeon who not only cares for the patient, but actually has his or her hands inside of a patient and restores them to health based on an avoidable accident or an avoidable event.
And pediatricians are great, and doctors and family practitioners, but surgeons have a unique bond with a patient in that we're given the incredible, um, opportunity, and I'm so grateful to each patient for the trust they put in us to take their child, enter a body cavity, repair something, and restore them to health.
That responsibility establishes an emotional connection between the pediatric surgeon and the child that is very, very different from a pediatrician and a child.
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