Dr. Paul Pitel of Nemours Children’s Specialty Care to be honored by Jacksonville Area Legal Aid (photo courtesy of Attorney at Law Magazine First Coast Edition)

Photo courtesy of Attorney at Law Magazine First Coast Edition

Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Nemours Children's Specialty Care in Jacksonville since 1997, Dr. Paul Pitel is recognized as a towering figure in children’s health, not only by his peers in medicine, but also by a group of lawyers who are also dedicated to the well-being of Northeast Florida’s pediatric patients.

Jacksonville Area Legal Aid is presenting Pitel, who is now retiring, with its third annual Bridges to Justice for Children’s Health Award Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 6:30 p.m. in a Facebook Live event at www.facebook.com/JaxLegalAid/

The nonprofit law firm’s Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership enables the region’s health-care institutions to refer pediatric patients and their families to civil legal aid to resolve issues impacting the children’s health.

Through the partnership, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid serves about 200 children a year, including not only patients of Nemours Children’s Specialty Care, but also of Wolfson Children’s Hospital, UF Health Specialty Pediatric Clinics, the Sulzbacher Village Pediatric Health Center, and Community PedsCare®, a pediatric program of Community Hospice & Palliative Care.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y. and a graduate of Brown University, where he earned both his undergraduate and M.D. degrees, Dr. Pitel has served on the boards of many organizations devoted to children’s health, has authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on pediatrics and hematology/oncology, and has taught pediatrics at Brown and at the University of Florida.

Coincidentally, one of his three sons, Stephen Pitel, is a JALA staff attorney and the director of the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership.

“I first got involved with this work when Stephen joined JALA,” Dr. Pitel said. “It became clear to me that this was something that needed to be supported by the major health-care institutions in the community, because it was our patients, their families, and our institutions that really benefited from this. So, it actually was not a very hard sell, because this was a critical thing for our community.”

Dr. Pitel is grateful to those who have financially supported the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership, which has served a number of his patients.

Jacksonville Area Legal Aid has raised more than $1 million toward an endowment for the partnership, with donations being matched at 125 percent by Baptist Health. The goal is to raise $2.25 million including Baptist’s match, so that the endowment can fund the partnership in perpetuity, ensuring that pediatric patients in Northeast Florida will always have access to assistance with legal issues such as health insurance coverage, educational accommodations, immigration, and access to safe housing, transportation, and other community services.

“The providers we surveyed in our community unanimously agree the NFMLP improves their patients’ health and quality of life and improves their ability to deliver services, with one going so far as to say they ‘sleep better at night’ knowing the partnership is there,” said JALA President & CEO Jim Kowalski. “But we couldn’t do it without health-care leaders like Dr. Paul Pitel. We are forever grateful for his dedication to our community’s children.”