Christopher Greeley, MD, MS, FAAP

The Ray E. Helfer Society Awards Dr. Christopher Greeley Its Highest Honor

Nomination Letter for Chris Greeley, MD, MS, FAAP

On Wednesday 6-1-2021 I received the e-mail from Dee-Dee to call for nominations for the annual Helfer Awards. After consultation with Wouter Karst the both of us would like to propose as a nominee for the Helfer Award Christopher Greeley.

It goes without doubt that everybody in our field of child abuse has heard of and learned from Chris. First off, he’s a past-president of the Helfer Society in which capacity he dedicated his time and energy for the good of the society. He’s the chief of the section of Public Health Pediatrics at Texas Children’s Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. In this capacity he has invested in child abuse prevention programs, an important aspect of our work. And finally he’s the chair of the Texas Statewide Blue Ribbon Task Force for child abuse prevention and child wellbeing.

However, much of that can be said about many child abuse paediatricians, as everybody involved in this field works with energy and passion to help children and parents either to prevent child abuse or to diagnose and treat child abuse. What for us sets Chris apart is his phenomenal literature knowledge and the way he learned us all how to critically read medical papers. There hasn’t been a Helfer meeting where Chris hasn’t shown us the importance to go back to the original publications, which often state something completely different than the authors claim in the publication in which it is cited. He’s shown us how to debunk bad science and poor publications. And he’s an avid writer of well-thought letters to the editor when he feels that a publication is not up to par. As such he’s a true defendant of our field and a mentor to many of us.

And finally, he’s great colleague and friend who (like so many others) has made us Dutchmen feel really welcome in the Helfer society.

In light of all the above we feel that believe that Chris made sufficient significant contributions to the field of Child Abuse Pediatrics, and that he deserves to be on the list of Helfer Award Winners.

Interestingly while doing some background research for this proposal we found that in 2006 Chris received the 2006 Ray E. Helfer, M.D., Award by the National Alliance of Children's Trust and Prevention Funds and the American Academy of Pediatrics in honour of his child abuse prevention efforts. We think that the time has come that Chris becomes a recipient of the only true Helfer Award.

Yours sincerely,

Wouter A. Karst, MD
Prof. Rick R. van Rijn, MD, PhD.”