Dr. Taylor Receives Pediatric Infectious Disease Society Antimicrobial Stewardship Fellowship Award

Margaret “Maggie” Taylor, M.D., a second-year pediatric infectious disease fellow at Baylor College of Medicine, was one of three candidates awarded the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society (PIDS) Antimicrobial Stewardship Fellowship Award on Aug 26, 2020. This award is given annually to fellows pursuing research in antimicrobial stewardship and provides mentorship from leaders within the Pediatric Committee on Antimicrobial Stewardship. Awardees will present their research at the annual Pediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship Conference in St. Louis in June 2021.  

Maggie, under the mentorship of Deb Palazzi, M.D., is conducting a dual-center study with Torsten Joerger, M.D., a third-year pediatric infectious disease fellow at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who was also awarded this honor and is mentored by Jeff Gerber, M.D., Medical Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at CHOP. Together, they will conduct a review of penicillin allergy labels in children seen at over 80 clinics in Houston, TX and Philadelphia, PA.  

The Infectious Disease Society of America recommends that all beta-lactam allergy labels be assessed as a component of antimicrobial stewardship but also recognizes that this is a relatively unstudied field as a primary stewardship intervention. Maggie and Torsten’s study will examine the prevalence, mechanism, and quality of penicillin allergy labels, as well as explore outcomes of children labeled as penicillin-allergic compared to children without allergy labels. Their study should better inform future outpatient antimicrobial stewardship programs on the most strategic ways to review and address allergy mislabeling in the community.