The Paeds Round – Details, episodes & analysis

How can paediatricians offer patients with sickle cell disease the best possible care? How do we listen to children and young people, and their families, to help recognise and manage their painful crises?

Emma and the team are joined by Dr Subarna Chakravorty, a consultant haematologist, to discuss the NICE guidelines for sickle cell and thalassemia and the management of pain. The panel discusses how children of different ages experience pain differently and why it's important to consider co-morbidities.

Guest: Dr Subarna Chakravorty, Consultant Haematologist, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College London. Subarna has a special interest in non-malignant haematology and stem cell transplant for haemoglobinopathy and non-malignant diseases.

Hosts: Dr Emma Lim and Dr Christo Tsilifis 

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This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Odland.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual.

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning. 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

Antibiotics have a huge impact on delivering health care and reducing mortality – about a third of children in hospitals are taking these medicines – but the threat of antimicrobial resistance is real.

Dr Sanjay Patel, a consultant in paediatric infectious diseases and immunology, talks to hosts Emma and Christo about its causes and how we can improve antimicrobial stewardship for the benefit of all patients.

Download transcript (PDF)

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Odland.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual.

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning. 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

What exactly is group A Streptococcus and what are its carriage rates? How do we pick apart those paediatric patients with viral illnesses from those with strep throat? 

Emma and Christo are joined by Dr Liz Whittaker, a paediatric infectious diseases consultant in London, an academic at Imperial College and convener of the British Paediatric Allergy, Immunity and Infection Group (BPAIIG) to discuss this bacteria. They discuss whether or not to use antibiotics, understanding rashes and much more.

With your hosts, Dr Emma Lim and Dr Christo Tsilifis.

Download transcript: https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-03/The-paeds-round-5-transcript.pdf 

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts for discussions on a wide range of child health topics - from health inequalities to climate change, from paediatric training to quality improvement.

It's January and all the children are back in school. And that means it's a chance to swap viruses and herald in the new year with fevers!

This month's episode has the answers to your questions as child health professionals on this burning problem. Should you worry about the height of the fever? Should you give antipyretics? How do you reassure parents and carers that fevers are part of everyday life?

All of these issues are discussed, along with a passionate plea to make hand washing great again. So don't get hot under the collar, listen to The Paeds Round as we take time out to chat to special guest, Dr Alasdair Munro, senior clinical research fellow in paediatric infectious diseases at the University of Southampton (https://alasdairmunro.substack.com/about and https://twitter.com/apsmunro).

With your hosts, Dr Emma Lim and Dr Christo Tsilifis.

Download transcript (PDF)

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (https://www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts for discussionsonawide range of child health topics - from health inequalities to climate change, from paediatric training to quality improvement.

We're back for episode 3 of The Paeds Round with special guest Dr Katy Fidler joining our hosts Emma Lim and Christo Tsilifis to talk about the management of herpes simplex virus. We discuss stigma, when to worry about HSV, the importance of early detection and what to look out for.

Katy is a Paediatric Infectious Diseases Consultant in Brighton and a Reader in Paediatrics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She also currently runs the national study on neonatal herpes through the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit.

This is the final episode in our three-part mini-series on HSV. We'll return in the new year to discuss fever.

Download transcript: https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/The-paeds-round-transcript-HSV-management.pdf 

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (https://www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

We're back for episode 2 of The Paeds Round with special guest Dr Hermione Lyall joining our hosts Emma Lim and Christo Tsilifis to talk about maternal to child transmission of herpes simplex virus and the importance of early detection of this rare condition.

Hermione is a paediatric infectious diseases consultant at St Mary's hospital in London and brings a wealth of experience to this discussion. She has a special interest in congenital infections and has worked tirelessly to prevent their transmission, which she discusses at length in this second of our three-part series on HSV.

Listen out for the third part of this series on 19 December.

Download transcript: https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/Transcript-The-paeds-round-2-neonatal-HSV-transmission.pdf 

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (https://www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

Resources relating to this episode

• The British Association of Sexual Health and HIV (BASSH) is updating its clinical guideline, Management of Anogenital Herpes in Pregnancy and the Neonate. The advice for prophylaxis in pregnancy has been updated to: "Start aciclovir from 32 weeks generally or 22 weeks in any woman where there is a suspected risk of prematurity". 
• Video: Dr Hermione Lyall | PaeCH Teaching for Trainees - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XE1gjt_Vq0 
• Samies NL, James SH, Kimberlin DW. Neonatal Herpes Simplex Virus Disease: Updates and Continued Challenges. Clin Perinatol. 2021 Jun;48(2):263-274. doi: 10.1016/j.clp.2021.03.003. PMID: 34030813.
• Melvin AJ, Mohan KM, Vora SB, Selke S, Sullivan E, Wald A. Neonatal Herpes Simplex Virus Infection: Epidemiology and Outcomes in the Modern Era. J Pediatric Infect Dis Soc. 2022 Mar 24;11(3):94-101. doi: 10.1093/jpids/piab105. PMID: 34894240; PMCID: PMC8946680.
• Waheed S, Nuttall L, Fidler K, Dudley J, Bamford A, Lyall H. Neonatal Herpes Simplex Virus: Cutaneous Recurrence Is Common on Stopping Prophylactic Suppression Therapy. J Pediatric Infect Dis Soc. 2022 Dec 5;11(11):518-521. doi: 10.1093/jpids/piac098. PMID: 36048737.

Though common and self-limiting in older children and adults, herpes simplex viral infection can cause a spectrum of neonatal disease from simple lesion to devastating encephalitis. How can we identify babies at risk and provide appropriate treatment?

In this episode, Sarah discusses her devastating story of losing a child to neonatal HSV and her work in raising awareness of neonatal HSV.

Featuring Emma Lim and Christo Tsilifis with Sarah de Malplaquet, parent of Kit, and founder of the Kit Tarka Foundation. 

See transcript at https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-10/The-paeds-round-HSV-infection-transcript.pdf

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (https://www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

Children's oral health is in a crisis: it's the most common reason for children to visit a hospital and it's not improving as quickly as we need.

Professor Peter Day, paediatric dentist and professor of children's oral health, speaks with us around the stark facts on tooth decay – it affects 10% of three-year-olds and 48% of 15-year-olds – with impact on a child's ability to sleep, eat, talk and go to school, and on the health service – and how community interventions can help. Plus, how supervised tooth brushing can provide economic as well as health benefits.

Professor Peter Day is a Paediatric Dentist (in Leeds and Bradford) and Professor of Children's Oral Health at the University of Leeds with interests and expertise in children's oral health research and dental trauma. He speaks with the podcast host and paediatrician, Dr Emma Lim.

Download transcript (PDF)

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Odland.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual.

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning. 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

Our very special guest, the former Chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunology, Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, joins Emma and Christo to highlight the importance of prevention of infectious diseases and how this could change the future of child health and the NHS itself. 

The panel discusses population health in general, children with immunodeficiencies, vaccine uptake and vaccine hesitancy amongst much else.  

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard is Professor of Infection and Immunity at the University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and was Chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) for 12 years until June 2025.  

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Odland. 

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual. 

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning.  

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel. 

By the age of 8, one in three children show signs of tooth decay, and this can lead to broader health complications. So, what should paediatricians look out for?

Dr Greig Taylor, a paediatric dentist and clinical lecturer, joins Emma and the team to explore the state of children's oral health. They delve into the causes of dental decay and preventative measures. And they highlight the particular needs of immunocompromised children and why children with diabetes face a heightened risk of oral infections.

Dr Greig Taylor is a Clinical Lecturer in Paediatric Dentistry at Newcastle University and a Specialist Paediatric Dentist at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals Trust.

Featuring: Dr Greig Taylor, Dr Emma Lim and Dr Christo Tsilifis  

Download full transcript (PDF)

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Odland.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual.

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning. 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.