Loyola students launch national public health campaign for children with pacemakers

Fourteen Loyola seniors are launching a two-pronged national public health campaign
to support children who have pacemakers. The Pediatric Pacemaker Project (The PPP)
features an informative website (pediatricpacemakerproject.org) along with a strategic awareness campaign that aims to unite dispersed resources
and information for patients, parents, and caregivers, including teachers. The campaign
is also designed to raise awareness to build community and safety for those involved.
While the website is live and the direct mail outreach to pediatric cardiologists
nationwide has begun, the social media campaign across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram,
and YouTube will go live in the new year, on Jan. 1, 2025.

“This campaign has been such an incredible experience to work on,” said Catherine
Kutson, a senior majoring in communication and media with a specialization in advertising
and public relations as well as the director of marketing and public relations for
the Loyola Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) Chapter. “It’s really
inspiring to see all the work we’re doing come to fruition to make a difference in
people’s lives – to help children with pacemakers live their best lives.”  

The PPP is the result of the work of students in Loyola’s public relations and digital
media capstone courses offered through Loyola’s award-winning Department of Communication and Media. The formal launch event of The Pediatric Pacemaker Project will occur during the
final of the PR capstone, set for Wednesday, Dec. 11, from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Student
representatives from the four teams responsible for the endeavor – web, video, graphics,
and branding – will overview their research and results during that timeframe. Members
of the inaugural Department of Communication and Media Advisory Board as well as other industry professionals, medical staff, and supporters will be present
at the hybrid event to discuss the project and offer feedback.

“This is such a meaningful and much-needed project,” said Caridad de la Uz, M.D.,
director of pediatric electrophysiology at the Johns Hopkins Blalock-Taussig-Thomas
Pediatric and Congenital Heart Center in Baltimore. “I have always been fiercely protective
of my cardiac device and arrhythmia patients when it comes to school issues, because
I have seen the tragic consequences of what happens when teachers and coaches are
uninformed.”

An advisory board member to the website and effort, Dr. de la Uz is one of three featured
individuals featured in The Pediatric Pacemaker Project’s series of video interviews.
Her expertise founds the medical message, while Lori Jones, an award-winning author
and mother to a baby born needing a pacemaker, speaks to public advocacy through her
roles, including serving on the board of the Children’s Heart Foundation. The third
feature is a video interview with nine-year-old Scarlet Rosas-Moreno, a child who
suffered a health trauma while an infant resulting in the need for her pacemaker and,
through her experiences, is the inspiration for the project. 

The student-developed website hosts much more than the featured video interviews,
all orchestrated through student effort. 

“It makes medical terminology more approachable through infographics created by the
digital media capstone students, and it engenders positivity and possibility, lifting
the experience of a child having a pacemaker to be less burdensome and more light-hearted
through its triumphs and tributes page,” said Tania Cantrell Rosas-Moreno, Ph.D.,
professor of Communication and Media and PRSSA faculty adviser. 

That space also receives submissions of tributes, or shoutouts, from supporters like
family members and caregivers to children with pacemakers. “These children look like
other children,” said Rosas-Moreno. “But, they have ‘other health impairments,’ legally
affording them accommodations by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to help
them live their best lives.” 

“Being the liaison for our student PR agency to the web team, or the students in the
digital media capstone who were building the website, was like working in an agency
setting,” said Alexander Valencia, a senior double majoring in communication and media
as well as speech-language-hearing sciences. “Learning to balance relationships, like
considering the visitor’s experience on the website with the goals of The PPP that
my PR capstone classmates and I were creating, took a lot of work. But it has been
so worth it!”

“This merged capstone project exemplifies the Loyola difference,” said Dr. Jonathan
Lillie, associate professor in the Department of Communication and Media and the co-capstone
administrator of this project. “We are proud of our students, who seek out and embrace
experiential and high-impact learning opportunities like this to care for the community
and give voice to those who may not be able to be heard otherwise. Further, these
capstone students are remarkably prepared for the professional world through applying
their talents in a mentored environment like this to real causes, enacting positive
change. Introducing students through this project to the sensitive nature of working
in the healthcare sector is a bonus.”

A pacemaker is a special heart machine implanted in one’s body to assist the heart’s
natural rhythm. While pacemakers are stereotypically associated with the elderly,
one child in about every 22,000 born annually needs this life-saving device. Other
children suffer health traumas similarly resulting in their need for a pacemaker.
Regardless of age, pacemakers are the same for all, only differing in placement and
pacing of the heart. Children with pacemakers form a unique niche within pediatric
cardiology, one that is not commonly considered nor well-known, resulting in limited
direct federal funding for research, development, and other resources.

Loyola’s Department of Communication and Media is housed in Loyola College of Arts and Sciences, which is one of the three colleges
within Loyola University Maryland. Founded in 2006, the department is one of the largest
and most in-demand on campus. Students studying areas of the communications industry
may choose specializations in advertising and public relations, digital media, journalism,
or media and society. The department is home to award-winning, student-run media outlets,
including WLOY Loyola Radio, Greycomm Studios and The Greyhound weekly student newspaper. The United States’ first student-run publishing house, Apprentice House Press, also falls within the department’s domain. Clubs and additional activities the department
sponsors include Loyola’s heavily decorated Public Relations Student Society of America
Chapter, the AAF Chapter, the Evergreen annual yearbook, and Lambda Pi Eta Honor Society.
For more information, please visit loyola.edu/communication.