There really are no excuses not to engage in advocacy. Associations like APIC make it easy for members to write their state and federal lawmakers by creating all sorts of scripted letters, and other tools. Sarah Smathers of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia explains why telling your story to your elected officials helps them understand the problems you face and allows them to make a difference for you. Advocacy, like infection prevention is everyone’s business.

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Silvia Quevedo

“We should never let a pandemic go to waste. There has never been a time with IPs in the news”

Sarah Smathers, MPH,CIC,FAPIC, System Director of Infection Prevention and Control at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Sarah Smathers, is the System Director of Infection Prevention and Control at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She is Immediate Past President of the Delaware Valley/Philadelphia Chapter of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), Chair of the APIC Public Policy Committee and Adjunct Professor at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health. Sarah is serving as part of the Infection Prevention Advisory Group for the Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS) network and is on the steering committee to create the first Delaware County Health Department. Sarah has worked at CHOP since 2006, has been certified in Infection Control since 2010 and became an APIC Fellow in 2016. She has presented at national conferences including Children’s Hospital Association (CHA), APIC, SHEA and IDWeek and has published on the epidemiology and prevention of infectious diseases. Sarah has master in public health degree from the University of Michigan in Hospital and Molecular Epidemiology.