Meet Dr. Marsha Spitzer

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Marsha Spitzer.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Dr. Spitzer. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
After medical school and pediatric residency training on the East Coast, I spent two years in Guam as a military spouse, working for a small pediatric clinic on the island.

I moved to San Diego in 2001 and have worked at Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD) ever since. I was involved in Reach Out and Read as a pediatric resident in Washington, DC in the late 1990s and became involved again here in San Diego in 2007 when we started Reach Out and Read San Diego at two FHCSD sites.

I joined the America Academy of Pediatrics, California Chapter 3 (AAP-CA3) Reach Out and Read San Diego Physician Advisory Committee and then joined the AAP-CA3 Executive Board, serving as our chapter president from 2017-2019. I have been the Medical Director for Reach Out and Read San Diego since 2016.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has been a slow-but-steady road expanding Reach Out and Read San Diego to almost 100 sites in the community. The program is very simple – use the frequent well-child visits in the first five years as an opportunity to talk to families about the importance of sharing books with children, and give them the tool to put this advice into practice by handing them a new book to share at home.

Pediatric visits cover a lot of topics, so one bump in the road has been working with physicians and other pediatric healthcare providers to help them find ways to incorporate Reach Out and Read San Diego into their already jam-packed visits. And, of course, funding and fundraising are always creating bumps in the road.

American Academy of Pediatrics, California Chapter 3 and Reach Out and Read San Diego – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
The American Academy of Pediatrics, California Chapter 3 (AAP-CA3) is the local chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). We support the health and wellbeing of children in San Diego and Imperial Counties by working directly with families and with our 400+ pediatrician members.

Reach Out and Read San Diego (RORSD) is one of our flagship programs. I am proud that RORSD is active in every large health care system in San Diego and that we have distributed more than 1 million books to children.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We have been talking about how to address the major challenges of 2020 – how to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic and how to address structural racism in our communities. During the early months of the pandemic, most pediatricians saw the number of children coming to the clinic drop dramatically – some of those needs have been met by telemedicine, but the well-child visit with the growth measurements, the immunizations, and the Reach Out and Read San Diego book are done best with an in-person visit.

We have been working with national Reach Out and Read and with our local Reach Out and Read San Diego sites to adapt the message to telehealth. As part of the national American Academy of Pediatrics, our AAP-CA3 chapter and Reach Out and Read San Diego are working to ensure we are addressing structural racism by promoting conversations about how to talk with families; a very concrete action item has been to look at the children’s book titles we buy to ensure that we are representing the diversity that is San Diego.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://aapca3.org
• Phone: 619-281-2273
• Email: info@aapca3.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aapca3/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aapca3/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AAPCA3
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-pediatrics-california-chapter-3

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