The Incubator

Latest Episodes:

#438 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Should Neonatology Fellowship Be Shortened to Two Years? (ft. Dr. Christa Matrone) Apr 25, 2026

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Dr. Christa Matrone, neonatologist and program director at Winnie Palmer Hospital in Orlando, Florida, joins Ben and Daphna for a candid conversation about one of the most consequential announcements to hit neonatology training in years. She breaks down the American Board of Pediatrics proposal to create an optional two-year clinical training pathway for all pediatric subspecialties — including neonatology — starting as early as 2028, and explains why the neonatology community was largely caught off guard. She shares her nuanced perspective as a program director at one of the highest-volume units in the country, acknowledging both the potential benefits of a shorter clinical pathway and the serious concerns around clinical readiness, trainee wellbeing, and the future pipeline of physician scientists. She also calls on trainees and practicing neonatologists alike to make their voices heard before this conversation moves any further without them.

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As always, feel free to send us questions, comments, or suggestions to our email: nicupodcast@gmail.com. You can also contact the show through Instagram or Twitter, @nicupodcast. Or contact Ben and Daphna directly via their Twitter profiles: @drnicu and @doctordaphnamd. The papers discussed in today's episode are listed and timestamped on the webpage linked below.

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#438 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Are We Correcting for Gestational Age Long Enough in Our Most Premature Infants? (ft. Dr. Allison Lure) Apr 25, 2026

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Dr. Allison Lure, neonatologist and clinical informatics fellow, presents findings from a large primary care network spanning over 80 practices in Massachusetts on how term and preterm infants grow longitudinally after discharge. She shares why the standard practice of correcting for gestational age until two years may be sufficient for moderate and late preterm infants but falls short for babies born below 32 weeks — who may need correction extended to three years or beyond to avoid being misclassified as failing to thrive. She also sheds light on the often-overlooked growth trajectories of moderate and late preterm babies, a population rarely captured in NICU follow-up clinics, and explains what her work in clinical informatics is teaching her about how to store, structure, and extract meaningful data from the electronic health record.

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#438 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Can Preventing Hypotension and Using Low-Dose Steroids Change the Course of Surgical NEC? (ft. Dr. Parvesh Garg) Apr 25, 2026

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Dr. Parvesh Garg, neonatologist and researcher specializing in necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and acute kidney injury (AKI) in preterm infants, shares more than a decade of work on two of the most understudied organ systems in the NICU. He explains why surgical NEC is an independent risk factor for long-term neurodevelopmental impairment, how aggressively managing hypotension at the time of diagnosis may protect both the brain and the kidneys, and why the severity of NEC-associated AKI should be used as a prognostic tool in counseling families. He also presents early but fascinating laboratory findings suggesting that low-dose dexamethasone — unlike high doses — may help limit intestinal epithelial loss once NEC has set in, drawing a parallel to what therapeutic hypothermia does for HIE: the event has happened, but the inflammatory cascade may still be containable.

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#437 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - What Do Pediatricians Owe Their Communities Beyond the Four Walls of the Hospital? (ft. Dr. Wanda Barfield) Apr 24, 2026

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Dr. Wanda Barfield, MD, MPH, neonatologist at Emory University, former director of the Division of Reproductive Health at the CDC, and former Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service, joins Ben and Daphna for a conversation about the broader obligations of pediatricians in an era of growing maternal and infant health disparities. She reflects on what it means to truly know your community — not just your unit — and makes the case that engaging with local health departments, infant mortality review committees, and population health data can make you a better clinician at the bedside. She also offers practical advice on networking at large conferences and why showing up to learn, even without a poster or presentation, can be some of the most valuable time a physician spends at a meeting.

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#437 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Should We Be Transfusing Premature Babies With Cord Blood Instead of Adult Blood? (ft. Dr. Ravi Patel) Apr 24, 2026

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Dr. Ravi Patel, neonatologist and leading voice in neonatal hematology and transfusion medicine, joins Ben and Daphna to discuss the launch of NeoHeat — the first dedicated neonatal hematology and transfusion medicine group at PAS. He explains why transfusion medicine in neonatology is still full of unanswered questions, from how we manage iron supplementation to whether we are truly following the latest transfusion threshold guidelines at the bedside. He also introduces one of the most exciting emerging concepts in the field: using cord blood from healthy term newborns to transfuse premature infants, replacing adult hemoglobin with fetal hemoglobin — an innovation already being adopted in some European centers that could have wide-ranging implications beyond anemia alone.

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#437 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Can a Neonatal MRI Predict Long-Term Outcomes in Babies with HIE? (ft. Dr. Seetha Shankaran) Apr 24, 2026

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Dr. Seetha Shankaran one of the pioneers of therapeutic hypothermia for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and longtime member of the NICHD Neonatal Research Network, reflects on a career devoted to preventing and treating neonatal brain injury. She discusses what neonatal MRI can and cannot tell us about long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes in infants with HIE, why a normal MRI does not equal a normal future, and how the pattern of brain injury on imaging should shape the counseling conversation with families. She closes with a message that no imaging study can replace: consistent, long-term follow-up remains the most important tool we have.

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#437 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - How Do We Counsel Families of Tiny Babies Without Crushing Hope or Delivering False Hope? (ft. Dr. Charles Roehr) Apr 24, 2026

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Dr. Charles Roehr, neonatologist from Bristol, UK and faculty member of the Tiny Baby Collaborative, makes the case that caring for extremely preterm infants is as much about engaging families as it is about mastering the medicine. He discusses why parents of tiny babies are among the most vulnerable to enter a research conversation — often facing precipitous deliveries with little to no preparation — and what it takes for clinical teams to meet them where they are. He also addresses one of the hardest conversations in neonatology: how to counsel families around survival and neurodevelopmental outcomes when center-to-center variability is so wide, and why translating evidence from one unit to another remains one of the field's most stubborn unsolved problems.

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#437 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - How Can Families Transform Their Grief Into Research That Saves Other Babies? (ft. Jennifer Canvasser) Apr 24, 2026

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Jennifer Canvasser, founder of the NEC Society and mother of Micah, a 27-weeker who passed away from necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in 2014, shares what is new at the world's largest organization dedicated to NEC. She discusses the upcoming NEC Family Summit — the first of its kind globally — taking place in Davis, California this September, and explains why bringing families together as active research partners is not just about healing but about advancing the science. She also addresses how clinicians can better empower NICU families with information before a diagnosis is ever made, and highlights the free evidence-based resources the NEC Society has developed for units and families navigating this devastating disease.

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#437 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Is Cell Therapy for Neonatal Brain Injury Finally Within Reach? (ft. Dr. Atul Malhotra) Apr 24, 2026

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Dr. Atul Malhotra, neonatologist and researcher at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, makes the case that cell therapy for neonatal brain injury is a slow burn that is finally gaining momentum. He shares why tempering expectations doesn't mean losing hope, how regulatory complexity sets stem cells apart from conventional therapies, and why cell therapy may look different for preterm infants with white matter injury versus term infants with HIE.

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#436 - The ABP Just Proposed a Two-Year Neonatology Fellowship. Now What? Apr 22, 2026

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Breaking news from the American Board of Pediatrics: a proposal to move all 15 pediatric subspecialties to a two-year, competency-based training model by July 2028 just dropped, and Ben and Daphna are breaking it down in real time. What does shifting from time-based to EPA-grounded training mean for neonatology fellows? Is two years actually enough? What happens to scholarship, research exposure, and the physician-scientist pipeline? And should neonatology take this reshuffling of the cards as an opportunity to chart its own course entirely? This is essential listening for fellows, program directors, and anyone who cares about the future of our workforce.

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