Image: aap.org
An alumnus of the Armed Forces Medical College in Pune, India, Dr. Ramesh Sachdeva also has also gone on to earn several other postgraduate degrees, including an MBA from the University of Houston-Clear Lake, a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Texas School of Public Health, and a juris doctor from Marquette University Law School. For the past five years, Dr. Ramesh Sachdeva has served as the associate executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
At the recent AAP National Conference in Chicago, researchers presented alarming new statistics about opioid dependency among children in the United States. According to the data, each day more than 100 children arriving in emergency rooms nationwide test positive for opioid dependency or addiction. Researchers looked at data from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample database over a five-year period, from 2008-2013. They noted that in the final year of the study nearly 50,000 people under 21 reported to emergency rooms and were diagnosed with opioid addiction, up more than 17,000 from 2008.
One of the study’s authors, Veerajalandhar Allareddy, MD, MBA, said the average ER diagnoses 135 children with an opioid addiction each day. He hopes the data will push key stakeholders to develop programs and resources to help fight the growing epidemic.
Dr. Ramesh Sachdeva 