Pam is a mom and pediatrician who served inner Toledo city families for 30 years through Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center in Toledo, Ohio. In addition to providing primary care, Pam created and led the Mercy Family Care Team connecting children with complex medical issues and their families to a physician practice who could manage their care. She and her team provided those families additional resources including Hand in Hand’s principles and tools.
Dr. Oatis trained over 900 Public Health Nurses, Early Intervention workers, and Head Start Teachers using Hand in Hand’s Listening Tools to improve the quality of care they offer. She also served as the Medical Specialist for Ethics for the 350 bed tertiary care teaching hospital for 15 years and chaired the Adult Institutional Review Board responsible for evaluating all research on human subjects.
She has won numerous awards for research and teaching excellence including the American Academy of Pediatrics Ohio Chapter Pediatrician of the Year in 2011-12, and the March of Dimes Physician of the Year in 2013 and was chosen to participate in the first Harvard University Program in Pediatric Palliative Care Education and Practice in 2008/9.
She is on Hand in Hand’s research team and has presented at multiple national and international conferences, as well as teaching classes in person and online. HiH has informed her parenting and pediatric work for more than 30 years.
Pam and her husband of 40 years loved, nurtured, and still treasure and enjoy one foster and two adopted sons who are now vibrant young men. She grows lots of organic vegetables, lifts weights, swims, bikes, and runs, to keep up with the children in her life whom she treasures.