The TeenGrowth team comprises world-renowned pediatricians, educators and Internet professionals committed to improving the lives of adolescents.
Medical Advisory Board
Carole Allen, MD
Dr. Allen, with over 33 years experience in general pediatrics, is Director of Pediatrics at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in Boston. She is on staff at two Boston area teaching hospitals, Children's Hospital Medical Center and Mount Auburn Hospital. A Clinical Instructor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Boston University School of Medicine, Dr. Allen has taught pediatrics to residents, medical students and nurse practitioners for more than 25 years. Throughout her career, she has participated in clinical research involving infectious disease and vaccines, and is an author of several peer-reviewed papers published in pediatric journals.
Dr. Allen is currently Vice President of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the pediatrics delegate to the Massachusetts Medical Society. Her anti-tobacco activism has won her the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards Paul Revere award for "outstanding dedication and leadership in tackling public health issues."
Dr. Allen and her husband of 40 years have a son and daughter and one grandson.
David Cimino, MD
Dr. Cimino is a graduate of the University of Florida and the University of Florida College of Medicine. He interned and completed his residency at the University of Minnesota and the University of Florida where he served as Chief Resident in Pediatrics. He spent two years as Base Pediatrician at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa Florida and practiced General Pediatrics in Tampa for 20 years.
Dr. Cimino then joined the Medical Staff and faculty at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg Florida as Director of Adolescent Medicine and established the Adolescent Medicine Program for patient care and teaching of residents and medical students. He is Board Certified in Pediatrics and was Board Certified in Adolescent Medicine from 1997-2004. Dr. Cimino holds the appointment as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
Dr. Cimino left the full time practice of Adolescent Medicine at All Children's Hospital effective July 1,2006 but continues to see patients and serve as the medical consultant at the full service school based clinic at Northeast High School in St. Petersburg, Fla.. This clinic is funded and serves a school population of 2000 students. Dr. Cimino is active in school health and serves as the Chairman of the School Health Advisory Committee of Pinellas County that has a school enrollment of 100,000 students. He is active in educating school health educators in the unique problems of adolescents. Dr. Cimino has developed an especial expertise in managing Eating Disorders and Gynecological problems of pediatric and adolescent patients.
Dr. Cimino served as President of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and is a former Chairman of the Committee on School Health and Sports Medicine of the Florida Chapter and a former member of the Committee on School Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is a member of the Section on School Health. He is a member of the Society for Adolescent Medicine and the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology.
George D. Comerci, MD, FAAP
Medical Advisor Emeritus
Dr. Comerci graduated from Rutgers University College of Pharmacy and Temple University
Medical School, interned with the United States Public Health Service and completed his
residency at Saint Christopher’s Hospital for Children (Temple University) in
Philadelphia. After four years of private practice in New Jersey, he was appointed
assistant professor of Pediatrics and outpatient director at the Glennon Children’s
Hospital, Saint Louis University Medical School.
In 1969 he became director of Ambulatory Pediatrics and deputy head of the Department
of Pediatrics at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, where the
Department’s ambulatory-focused teaching program was twice winner of the Ambulatory
Pediatric Association’s (APA) Teaching Award. Dr. Comerci served for two years as the
College’s first associate dean for Continuing Medical Education and in 1979 became
professor of Pediatrics and of Family and Community Medicine. He was director of
Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine until 1991, when he was named director of Pediatric
and Adolescent Medicine at Desert Hills Center for Youth and Families in Tucson. He is a
fellow of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. He received the Society’s Annual
Visiting Professorship and Award in 1991 and its prestigious Outstanding Achievement in
Adolescent Medicine Award in 1996.
Dr. Comerci was president of the Pima County Pediatric Society and the Arizona Chapter
of the American Academy of Pediatrics. In 1996 he was the recipient of the Arizona
Chapter’s Special Achievement Award. He was national president of the Ambulatory
Pediatric Association in 1978, and in 1990 was named its Annual Visiting Scholar. He was
chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Section on Adolescent Health and,
in 1987, received its annual Adolescent Medicine Distinguished Service Award. Dr. Comerci
has served on numerous AAP committees including the Committee on Scientific Meetings, and
chaired the AAP Task Force on Substance Abuse.
Dr. Comerci served as national president of the AAP in 1994-1995.
Bruce Epstein, MD
Dr. Epstein practiced pediatrics in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Seminole, Fla., from 1973 until his retirement in 1998. He is currently director of Pediatric Content for KidsGrowth.com.
Dr. Epstein is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Academy's legislative representative to Congressman C. W. "Bill" Young. He was the author of a popular parenting column in the St. Petersburg Times from 1992 to 2000. Dr. Epstein devotes most of his "free time" working with his wife at the Florida Holocaust Museum, a St. Petersburg, Fla., museum dedicated to teaching the dangers of prejudice, discrimination and bigotry through the lesson of the Holocaust. They have three grown children, and seven grandchildren.
Michael D. Gaynor, MD, FAAP
Dr. Gaynor has been a practicing pediatrician in Tampa, Fla., since 1985. He is Board Certified and a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He completed his residency in Pediatrics at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami and has completed a fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at Long Island Jewish Hospital in New York. Dr. Gaynor is married and has three beautiful daughters who were born in 1992, 1994 and 1996.
Frances Page Glascoe, MD
Prior to completing a PhD in Special Education in 1986, Glascoe worked for nine years in private and public schools teaching kindergarten, first grade, resource and early childhood special education classes. Since 1983, she has been a Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Child Development at Vanderbilt University and her clinical responsibilities there involved educational assessment of children with school difficulties. She also directed the rotation in developmental and behavioral pediatrics for residents and medical students.
Glascoe has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers published in journals of pediatrics and early childhood special education. She served for eight years as the U.S. editor for Ambulatory Child Health, the Journal of General and Community Pediatrics. She is on the Editorial Boards of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine and the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. Her research has focused on the importance of parental concerns in detecting behavioral and developmental problems and she developed a short screening test for use in primary care, including Parents' Evaluations of Developmental Status (PEDS). Dr. Glascoe is the recipient of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Dale Richmond Award for contributions in child development.
Elizabeth Susan Hodgson, MD
Dr. Hodgson has been a practicing pediatrician since 1982 and is currently an attending physician and on the teaching faculty in General Pediatrics at Saint Peter's University Hospital and at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey.. Dr. Hodgson is an associate clinical professor of Pediatrics with Drexel Medical School. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.
Dr. Hodgson has extensive experience dealing with the issue of child abuse. In 1981, she was the resident liaison to Yale-New Haven Hospital Diagnosis Assessment Referral and Treatment (DART) Team for Child Abuse in 1981 and went on to be a medical examiner for child abuse at Wake County Medical Center, Raleigh, NC, in 1981. From 1983 to 1986, she was the organizer of and physician member on the Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) Team at Athens Regional Medical Center in Athens, GA. Then for six years she was the child abuse evaluator for the New Hampshire CARE program, which is part of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Systems, serving southern New Hampshire and the greater Manchester area. Currently she is the co-medical director of the Dorothy Hersh Regional Child Protection Center in New Brunswick, NJ.
Jennifer Johnson, MD
Dr. Johnson, who has more than 20 years' experience as a pediatrician specialist in adolescent medicine, practices in Orange County, Calif.
Dr. Johnson is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics in Pediatrics and in Adolescent Medicine. Dr. Johnson also has an advanced degree in public health. Previously she was a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine, where she served as director of the adolescent medicine program and of the pediatric residency program. Her scholarly activities included research, authorship and teaching about both adolescent medicine and medical education. She has taught medical students, residents, faculty and community pediatricians. Dr. Johnson continues to present many educational programs.
Dr. Johnson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She has led many activities in the Academy's Section on Adolescent Health and is its immediate past chairperson. She has served as an advocate for adolescents, adolescent health and ongoing training of pediatricians in adolescent health. Dr. Johnson has also been active in the Society for Adolescent Medicine, enhancing learning opportunities for teachers of adolescent medicine.
Dr. Johnson conducted her internship and residency in Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Hospital and Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. Her fellowship in Adolescent Medicine was at the University of California, San Diego, Medical Center.
John W. Kulig, MD, MPH
Dr. Kulig is director of Adolescent Medicine at Tufts-New England Medical Center’s Floating Hospital for Children, and is Professor of Pediatrics, Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. He received his BA from Brown University, his MD from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and his MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Kulig completed his fellowship training in Adolescent Medicine at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati.
Dr. Kulig developed the Adolescent Medicine program at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston and started one of the first school-based clinics in that city. The Student Health Center at Boston High School received numerous grants and awards, including support from the Kellogg Foundation, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention and the Bureau of Primary Health Care.
Dr. Kulig has served in many leadership positions in adolescent health at both local and national levels. In 1981, he founded the New England Regional Chapter of the Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM). He has served on the Board of Directors of national SAM as both President and Executive Secretary-Treasurer and as a member of both the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Substance Abuse and the American Board of Pediatrics Adolescent Medicine Subboard. He also serves as a medical consultant for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Job Corps, a residential training program for disadvantaged youth. He has lectured and published extensively in the field of adolescent health, with a particular interest in at-risk youth.
Donald P. Orr, MD
Dr. Orr is professor of Pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine and
director of Adolescent Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics. His life’s work has
been in the field of Adolescent Medicine. He has written more than 120 articles and made
greater than 250 presentations on the subject of adolescent health. He serves as an
editorial reviewer for more than 11 leading journals including Pediatrics, Journal of
Adolescent Health, and Archives Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Dr. Orr has been active
in the American Academy of Pediatrics, section of Adolescent Health, functioning as
newsletter editor and chairman of the education committee. He is currently medical editor
for the American Board of Pediatrics Adolescent Medicine Subspecialty Examination and associate editor for the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Francis Rushton, MD
Dr. Rushton is the senior partner at Beaufort Pediatrics, where he has worked for the
past 23 years. He also currently sees patients in Hampton, SC. Dr. Rushton is a clinical
professor of Pediatrics at the University of South Carolina at Columbia (USC) and is affiliate faculty with the University's Institute for Families in society. He founded Beaufort's
Well Baby Plus program, a program designed to provide intensive
support for families with infants to help them address the stresses of parenting. Dr.
Rushton is the author of Family Support in Community Pediatrics: Confronting the
Challenge. He has authored several articles on child abuse prevention and the effect of
Medicaid on primary care.
Dr. Rushton is a graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy (Class of 1969), attended
Georgetown University and received his MD from the University of Miami in 1976. He
completed his pediatric training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr Rushton
has long advocated for a community-wide approach to the problems children face, and has been involved in South Carolina with the First Steps Program, the voices for South Carolina's Children, the Governor's Maternal and Child Health Committee. He is Chair of Healthy Families America-Beaufort Country. Dr. Rushton is past-president of the South Carolina Chapter of the American Academy of
Pediatrics (AAP). He currently serves as a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Community Health Services.
He has had the opportunity to share his pediatric expertise with several mission
locations, including hospitals in Haiti, Yemen, Malawi and India. In 2002, he served for three months as a visiting professor at Okinawa Chubu Hospital in Japan. His activities have
resulted in being honored as humanitarian of the year by the Beaufort Chamber of Commerce
and volunteer physician of the year by the Department of Health and Environmental Control. In 2001, South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges awarded Dr. Rushton with the Order of the Palmetto, the state's highest citizen honor, in recognition of his child advocacy efforts. Dr. Rushton is married and has three children.
Consulting Medical Advisory Board
Thomas Eccles, MD
Dr. Eccles is head of Adolescent Medicine Services at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona and Associate Director of Residency Training for the Phoenix Children's Hospital/Maricopa Medical Center's Combined Pediatric Training Program.
Dr. Eccles completed his Fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine in 2003. From 2003 to 2005, Dr. Eccles was Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Tulane University in New Orleans, but relocated to Arizona after Hurricane Katrina. Prior to completion of his Fellowship, Dr. Eccles was in the private practice of General Pediatrics. Dr. Eccles graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine in 1983 and from General Pediatrics Residency Training in 1986.
Dr. Eccles' special interests are in the care of adolescents and young adults with mood disorders,, minority health care issues, and adolescent social and development issues. Dr. Eccles is Board Certified in Adolescent Medicine as a Fellow of The American Board of Pediatrics and holds memberships in The Society for Adolescent Medicine and The American Academy of Pediatrics.
Diane M. Straub, M.D., M.P.H. Chief, Division of Adolescent Medicine
Dr. Straub is the Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine for the University of South Florida. She also directs the adolescent medicine residency and student training programs for USF. She is board certified in adolescent medicine and pediatrics. She completed her pediatrics residency at Johns Hopkins University, her Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University, and her fellowship in adolescent medicine from the University of California, San Francisco. Research and clinical interests include working with high-risk youth, STDs, HIV/AIDS, and adolescent gynecology. She and her husband have a daughter and a son.
Jennifer L. Woods, MD, MS, FAAP
Dr. Woods is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas where she is a member of the section of Adolescent Medicine. She is a board certified pediatrician and is board eligible in adolescent medicine. Dr. Woods completed her three-year adolescent fellowship at Indiana University in 2006 and remained on faculty as a Clinical Instructor of Pediatrics until July 2007 when she accepted a position in Arkansas.
Her areas of special interest include women's health issues, primary care for adolescents, and contraception/sexually transmitted infections in adolescents. Dr. Woods is an active member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Adolescent Medicine, and the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology.
Editorial Team
Roberta K. (Robin) Beach, MD, MPH
Dr. Robin Beach is Professor Emerita of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. An honors graduate of Duke University and Duke University School of Medicine, she also received a Masters in Public Health degree in Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Beach completed her Pediatric Residency and Adolescent Fellowship at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and specializes in adolescent medicine.
For over 35 years, Dr. Beach's career has been dedicated to program development and advocacy for adolescent health, and she has provided national and regional leadership for adolescent health promotion, adolescent risk reduction, and access to health care for underserved youth. National activities have included chair of the Committee on Adolescence for the American Academy of Pediatrics, Adolescent Expert Panel member for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Bright Futures initiative, Surgeon General's Select Consultant on Adolescent Health, and many regional and national task forces, councils, advisory panels and editorial boards. She is the recipient of the prestigious national Adele Dellenbaugh Hofmann Award from the AAP for "Exemplary Achievement in the Field of Adolescent Health."
Also a recipient of regional awards for outstanding contributions to adolescent medicine, Dr. Beach initiated the Colorado Advisory Council on Adolescent Health, was charter member and president of the Rocky Mountain Society for Adolescent Medicine, helped establish the nationally recognized Denver School Based Clinics, and developed Denver's comprehensive community health center Teen Clinics. After 20 years with the Denver Health and Hospitals Authority, she recently retired as the Director of Pediatric and Adolescent Services for the Westside Community Health Center, where half of her professional time was devoted to clinical practice and she was the highly respected primary care physician for two generations of teenage patients in Denver. As academic faculty at the Univ. of Colorado School of Medicine, she has been teaching adolescent specialty care for over 30 years. She has authored more than 55 textbook chapters, journal articles, and publications on adolescent medicine and is a widely known teacher and speaker on adolescent issues. Dr. Beach currently serves as medical consultant and advisor on adolescent health for state and national professional organizations, journals, boards, and foundations.
F. Lane France, M.D.
Dr. France is the Chief Medical Officer of Pediatric Health Alliance, LLC, Medical Director of Pediatric Health Care Alliance, PA, and Vice Chairman of iLIANT Corporation. He is one of the founding pediatricians and CEO of Pediatric Health Care Alliance. Dr. France is also a founder of KidsGrowth.com and TeenGrowth.com and serves as its Medical Director.
He practiced pediatrics in Tampa, Fla., for 27 years with Tampa Bay Pediatrics. During that time he was an assistant and then associate clinical professor of Pediatrics at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa. Dr. France has been an active fellow and member of many professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Florida Medical Association and Florida Pediatric Society. He is a Past President of the Hillsborough County Medical Association and the Hillsborough County Florida Pediatric Society. Previously, he was a member of the medical advisory boards of BabyCenter.com, Inc., Whittle Communications, Inc. and Special Reports TV, all health care information and media concerns. For eight years, he served on the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) national committee of Practice and Ambulatory Medicine, as well as on the Executive Committee of the AAP Section on Home Health. During the past few years he has also participated in AAP national work groups as well as being a strong advocate for children in his own community. Currently, Dr. France is working with leaders in his community to address the growing childhood overweight epidemic.
Richard Ferrelli
Mr. Ferrelli is a private investor and entrepreneur. Since 1987, Mr. Ferrelli has been a founder of several successful companies and an investor in several venture capital and leveraged buyout transactions. Mr. Ferrelli received a B.A. in economics, Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude, from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
Kim Buettner
Kim has served as the writer/editor for TeenGrowth.com since its inception in 1999. Kim has specialized in patient education programs for more than 10 years. She has worked in the pediatric and adolescent medicine field as well as the renal community. She is a graduate of the University of South Florida with a double BA degree in journalism and public relations.
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