Tom Novacheck, MD, Named AACPDM President

During the 75th Annual Meeting of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) Oct. 6-9, 2021, Tom Novacheck, MD, an orthopedic surgeon, and one of Gillette’s Children’s leading cerebral palsy (CP) researchers and physicians will be named the incoming president of the AACPDM for 2022. 

AACPDM is an organization of medical professionals devoted to the interdisciplinary education of clinicians interested in improving care for children who have cerebral palsy. Gillette Children’s is a world leader in the diagnosis and treatment of children who have cerebral palsy, and in the decades that have passed since the first annual meeting of the AACPDM in 1948, numerous Gillette experts have served in key leadership roles within the organization.

“I’ve been a member of AACPDM since 1991, and it is the most important organization I belong to professionally,” Novacheck said. “It is the only organization that provides a venue for having multidisciplinary, intellectual conversations between CP specialists from all around the United States about new techniques and treatments, difficult patient cases and ongoing research."

“I think what makes CP care at Gillette special is that we have all of the specialties and resources that individuals with cerebral palsy need under one roof. This allows us to work in concert as a multidisciplinary team that is able to comprehensively communicate with one another and provide the very best patient care possible,” Novacheck said. “In terms of what we bring to the AACPDM, I really see the care at Gillette as being in lock-step with the collaborative nature of the AACPDM. If there is an organization that fits Gillette and CP care, it is the AACPDM.”

Novacheck says the academy will be spending time updating its strategic plan this year. An important area of focus will be diversity, equity and inclusion and addressing race-based health care disparity, he said.