R Baby Heroes

Dr. Marc Auerbach & Dr. David Kessler

R Baby Honors Inspiring and Dedicated Volunteers Who Are Helping Us Save Babies' Lives

Given R Baby’s entrepreneurial spirit, our first R Baby Medical Hero Award will go to a young team of doctors that has been helping us since the very first year and who continue to work extremely hard and tirelessly above and beyond what our funding has been. I first met Dr. Marc Auerbach and Dr. David Kessler at NYU Langone to discuss their grant application of infant mannequin simulation training. They both far exceeded my expectations with their passion and drive. What I thought would have been an hour meeting turned into hours and hours of a discussion around their vision of pediatric emergency care including issues in the industry, ideas for solutions, and long term collaborative ways to break down the walls between hospitals to get everyone to work together efficiently.

After R Baby’s first year of raising funds, we knew we had to be very strategic and selective with which grants and doctors we decided to grant monies to in order to show results to donors and continue to build a solid foundation for R Baby’s future work. R Baby received many applications and we met with many physicians but these two doctors stood out to me for reasons that wound up providing many benefits. Their dedication to their field of medicine, pediatric emergency care, is so amazing − the POISE/INSPIRE network of simulation training has been a proven success in over 100 hospitals and growing, and both doctors continue to advise R Baby on a continual basis – at any given hour!

When Marc left for Yale Hospital and David for Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, we didn’t even worry that their R Baby work would suffer. Instead we knew that they both would have their new hospitals embrace our cause even further. That is exactly what happened! Andrew and I recently met with Dr. George Lister, the new Chairman of Yale School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics. He is a supporter of Marc’s latest vision of R Baby’s Sim-Mobile, a collaboration of top Children’s Hospitals who will asses and train neighboring community hospitals in mock emergency settings with parent actors. Sim-Mobile doctors will have a checklist of guidelines to see where gaps are and will assess, re-train and re-assess to help get as many ERs ready for children as possible. Dr. Lister not only supported R Baby’s initiatives but also agreed to join our Medical Advisory Board, which now includes many leaders in the healthcare industry.

As for David, he also has been an incredible advocate continuing our great work at Columbia and collaborating with Dr. Joel Berezow to integrate two powerful training networks so we can efficiently reach more doctors and create a larger library of content. David continues to lead the POISE/INSPIRE network with Marc and he is also always there when we need him. They both have spoken at international conferences for these R Baby grants and continue to work hard to improve the healthcare for as many children and babies as possible. They both embrace every opportunity to improve pediatric emergency care and their creativity, passion and enthusiasm are boundless.

Marc and David went above and beyond to make sure that our programs were highlighted as part of the Gala’s R Baby in Action Center helping to secure the ambulance/Sim-Mobile that greeted guests and brought residents and doctors to interact with guests. None of that was part of their grants, yet it shows their willingness to help in any way they can to spread our shared mission. Most importantly, these two doctors have proven that vision, passion and drive can really make a difference in this world.

Sincerely,
— Phyllis Rabinowitz, R Baby Co-Founder