My name is Dave Corwin. I confess that my picture is from 15 years ago but it's my favorite because the little girl on the TV above my left arm is my youngest daughter, Andrea, who is now 26 years old. She's 3 1/2 in the picture. That video is part of a 10 year longitudinal series of interviews that I did with my children about Andrea's slip and fall in the bathtub with her older brother (6 yrs old) and sister (4 yrs old) studying the accuracy of their memories for the event and in Andrea's case, the medical care she received. It's a charming, never to be published informal study, where the IRB was their mother. Now to who am I.
I am a child, adolescent, adult and forensic psychiatrist. I work as a Professor and Chief of the Child Protection and Family Health Division in the Pediatrics Department at the University of Utah and I have also served as Medical Director of Primary Children's Medical Center's (PCMC) Safe and Healthy Families Department (SHF) since 1999. I went to medical school at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine where one of my first faculty preceptors was Ray Helfer, MD. I completed my psychiatry and child psychiatry training at UCLA where my primary mentor was Roland Summit, MD and I served as the co-director of the Family Support Program which was one of the first family treatment programs for intrafamilial child sexual abuse located in a university child psychiatry outpatient treatment clinic. In 1985, I initiated and chaired the National Summit Conference on Diagnosing Child Sexual Abuse in LA. Out of that meeting, I chaired the group that founded the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) and served on its BOD for a number of years. I also helped found the Helfer Society, the Academy on Violence and Abuse (AVA) and the National Health Collaborative on Violence and Abuse (NHCVA) which developed out of the AMA's National Adivsory Council on Violence and Abuse for which I servied as the last Chair of the Steering Committee. Since coming to Utah in 1999, I have worked with the community on promoting and advancing child abuse prevention and at our Center on improving the quality of our services. I have also consulted on, trained, and evaluated cases of suspected or known child sexual abuse as an expert throughout the US, Canada, Great Britain, Europe, Israel, South Korea and Thailand over the past 30 years or so.
With regard to the ACEs, I produced an educational DVD with funding from the National Chld Traumatic Stress Network that featured a 2003 presentation by Dr. Felitti at a conference held at Snow Bird by our SHF Department with some additional video from a 2004 presentation at PCMC. 2,000 copies of that DVD have circulated around the country and world with many additional copies made from the official replications. It has also been streamed over the internet from the AVA website. With funding from the PCMC Foundation and contributions to the AVA in memory of my oldest daughter, Jessica Corwin, who passed away last July, I am in the final stages of completing a new ACE Study DVD featuring presentation by Drs. Felitti, Anda and Putnam at the AVA's April 2011 conference in Minneapolis. This new DVD also includes individual interviews with Drs. Felitti, Anda and Williamson describing the inspiration, collaboration, development, publications, significance and possible future developments regarding the ACE Study. That DVD will be available at the Chadwick Conference in San Diego later this month. It will also be given to all current and new members of the AVA and available for purchase from the AVA website, www.avahealth.org. All the presenters have donated their share of proceeds from this DVD to advance the efforts and mission of the AVA. Support for these presentations was provided by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
I believe that the ACE Study findings have revolutionized our sceintific understanding of the relationship between bad things that happen to kids and long term adverse health and social problems. They provide some of the most compelling evidence to support better prevention, early intervention and treatment to reduce these long term harms and assoicated suffering and dysfunction. They have generated international attention and an number of similar studies reinforcing and expanding upon the ACE Study findings. I applaud all those who have contributed to this study, its numerous publications and those who teach others about it. We are deeply indebted to the vision and hard work of Drs Anda and Felitti and grateful to the inspiration that caused Dr. Williamson to introduce Dr. Anda to Dr. Felitti and for his mentorship and support to Dr. Anda on the ACE Study.
I am also grateful to Jane Stevens for her excellent writing in the popular media about the ACE Study and her role in developing and supporting this website. We are also very fortunate that Dr. Robert Block, another member of this group, for making the ACE Study findings and its implications for healthy child development the centerpiece of his Presidency of the American Academy of Pediatrics and recent testimony to Congress.
I look forward to participating in this ongoing effort, sharing and discussion.
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