Nick's Contributions to Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics

I had the joy and honor of working with Nick for the last 5 years. He was amazing to work with: insightful, brilliant, creative, wise, and always fun. Whenever I complimented him on an accomplishment, he'd say "I'm just some dude". NOT! His cellphone ringtone was a clip from "Fanfare for the Common Man". He was anything but!

I've been responding to correspondence from all over the world: Australia, the Philippines, Canada, England, etc. and Terry has received letters from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Developmental Pediatrics, Calgary Public Health, etc. What is most interesting about every note is that not only did colleagues find Nick enormously talented at what he did, but that his exuberant, interesting, warm personality always shone through---and this even from people we often only communicated with by email or phone conferences.

I've put my (sketchy) recollections of Nick's professional life before he worked with me on early detection of developmental-behavioral problems in young children, into Nick's obituary. I'm hoping that those who knew him best at HUD, Z-Tech, Morgan Stanley Bank, the IRS, etc. will also weigh in.

In my lovely, but far too brief, time working with Nick, he created an online version of 'Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status' and thus a web-based developmental screening service that allows parents or health care providers to enter their vertbatim concerns about children into a text-based scoring analyzer. To that which he applied a rich set of evidence-based algorithms that produced automated summary reports for parents, and referral letters when needed. Then, he co-wrote a new measure called PEDS: Developmental Milestones which allows parents and providers to rate expected skills by age level. Nick designed all the graphics, master-minded all the print files, engineered a sophisticated yet simple scoring template, co-wrote the test's technical manual, and devised marketing its material. If you want to know more about all this, you can go to www.pedstest.com. There you'll find a two-minute video on the site of Nick demonstrating how the measure works which has been instrumental in helping busy clinicians quickly understand the tool.

The photo above show's Nick at the American Academy of Pediatrics conference in Atlanta, October, 2006. Nick created all the graphics and signage for our exhibit. Terry helped him coordinate the booth's colors with his shirt and tie. He was quite the peacock even out of flouro costumes!

Along the way, Nick naturally became a dearest friend. He explained electronic dance music, the life cycle of bees, the succession of plants and planets, and the workings of steam locomotives. He made me laugh when he'd switch from singing Music Hall to cathedral music to humming entire symphonies, and from there to recitations of poetry--especially from "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass." I loved that he shared his child-like wonder and ready tears at the beauty of this world. His joy was infectious and infinitely warming. I am so sad he's gone and wish with all my heart that he was with us all still.

Frances Page Glascoe
Professor of Pediatrics
Vanderbilt University

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