Illinois Department of Public Health recognizes two Lurie Children’s Hospital staffers for excellence in pediatric care

In recognition of National EMS Week, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and the Illinois Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) program are honoring two members of the staff of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago for their decades of outstanding pediatric care: Dr. Meta Carroll, MD, for the Lifetime Achievement award, and Lisa Mathey, APRN, an advanced practice nurse, for the Clinical Excellence award. The Ron W. Lee, M.D. – Excellence in Pediatric Care Awards are given annually by IDPH and EMSC to recognize those dedicated to pediatric emergency care and childhood injury prevention initiatives.

Dr. Carroll has dedicated her career to pediatric emergency treatment. In addition to her emergency medicine role at Lurie Children’s Hospital, she has also served until recently as the Site Leader for Pediatric Emergency Medicine and the Chair of the Pediatric Emergency Department at Northwest Community Hospital. She has been a member of the Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect through the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics since 2001. And she has served as an expert writer for the American Academy of Pediatrics PREP curriculum since 2018.

Mathey, a nurse practitioner at Lurie since 2003, is the Advanced Practice Provider Manager for the Emergency Departments at Lurie Children’s Hospital as well as Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital and Northwest Community Hospital. She is also the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program Coordinator for Lurie, running a program that serves as a model for care, and has leveraged her expertise to serve on statewide panels that have been formed to improve treatment for childhood sexual assault survivors.

“We are so happy today to recognize the contributions of two stellar healthcare professionals who have continuously gone above and beyond in their commitment to serving patients in their care at Lurie Children’s Hospital, and to leading and inspiring their colleagues,” said Acting IDPH Director Amaal Tokars. “Dr. Carroll is a dedicated and highly regarded physician who is passionate about pediatric emergency care and has devoted her career to advocating for children’s needs and working tirelessly to improving their outcomes. She continually strives for the very best, and through her work encourages all of us to do the very best that we can as well.

“Lisa Mathey has been a frontline nurse as well as an educator, mentor and advocate for pediatric patients,” Tokars said. “Early in her career as a nurse she saw the need and the opportunity to improve the treatment and care of child sexual assault survivors and made it her mission to accomplish that goal not just at Lurie but throughout her profession. She has shared her expertise as a teacher and by serving on several statewide task forces dedicated to improving care for children who have suffered from sexual abuse.”

“I can think of no more accomplished, inspiring, or deserving awardees than Dr. Meta Carroll and Advance Practice Provider Lisa Mathey,” said Elizabeth Alpern, MD, MSCE, Division Head of Emergency Medicine at Lurie Children’s. “Dr. Carroll excels as a clinician, educator, administrator and leader. Her guiding principle is to provide the absolute best pediatric emergent care with unbelievable energy, creativity, grace, and ironclad commitment. Difficult times offer the opportunity for great leaders to step forward and do great things; Dr. Carroll has done exactly that with expertise in quality improvement, attention to the bioethics of care, and inspired teaching to the next generation of providers. Meta is a role model for patient care and professionalism, providing outstanding holistic patient care, innovative teaching, administrative service and compassionate leadership.”

She continued, “Lisa Mathey has changed the standard of how we care for our must vulnerable children who are survivors of sexual assault. Her clinical excellence and passion come together to impact our state and national approach to caring for children with suspected sexual assault and abuse. Lisa’s rigorous, evidenced-based, and patient-centric approach has impacted the children she individually cares for, the institutional programs she has designed, the statewide legislations she has advocated for, and the national standards she has helped achieve. With unwavering passion, she has changed how we care for children and improved our approach to those traumatized by sexual assault/abuse.”

The Ron W. Lee, M.D. Excellence in Pediatric Care awards are presented each May. Dr. Lee was medical director of the Division of Emergency Medical Services and Highway Safety at IDPH and director of emergency medicine at Loyola University Medical Center. He was instrumental in establishing the EMSC program in Illinois. He passed away in 1998.

The Illinois EMSC program is currently a collaborative effort between IDPH and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. It was established in 1994 to ensure the emergency medical care needs of children are adequately addressed.