I'm Simon Parzen-Johnson. I work in pediatric infectious disease, so I take care of kids with complicated infections, things that maybe are a little bit more uncommon than typical infections that we see.
I chose to become a physician because I wanted to marry the two things that I'm really interested in, which is taking care of people and working with people and working with science, so trying to marry the idea of how can you take this new information, this new science and really use it to help people in your community.
Part of it is that I grew up in this neighborhood, so kind of coming back to the neighborhood to take care of the people that live in this neighborhood is definitely a passion of mine. And then I also like that Comer takes care of a community that often doesn't have access to really great health care. And I think that obviously needs to change, but I think it can change here as well.
I would say that my goal is really to have people have a positive experience in health care. I think that there's a lot of historical trauma related to, especially our communities in terms of health care. And I would love to be able to make it so that way we seem more like a team that's working with you to get your child better and not necessarily just a group who's talking at you.
My big passion is something called antimicrobial stewardship, and basically, what that is is how do we make sure that we're using antibiotics in an appropriate way, so when should we use them, when should we not use them, when do we not need to use them. And the goal is to prevent us from having situations in the future where we really can't use them because we have such bacteria that really aren't treated by antibiotics.
I did a master's while I was in my fellowship, and a lot of the master's was focused on community engagement and community-focused care. And so we did some projects where we were looking at how do you integrate the community into the actual care process, including bringing people from the community onto boards and bringing people into the medical decision-making community instead of just having it be all physicians or all nurses or all staff at the hospital. And so I think that's something, again, that I really want to focus on and be able to bring that community feel into the hospital.
I chose to become a physician because I wanted to marry the two things that I'm really interested in, which is taking care of people and working with people and working with science, so trying to marry the idea of how can you take this new information, this new science and really use it to help people in your community.
Part of it is that I grew up in this neighborhood, so kind of coming back to the neighborhood to take care of the people that live in this neighborhood is definitely a passion of mine. And then I also like that Comer takes care of a community that often doesn't have access to really great health care. And I think that obviously needs to change, but I think it can change here as well.
I would say that my goal is really to have people have a positive experience in health care. I think that there's a lot of historical trauma related to, especially our communities in terms of health care. And I would love to be able to make it so that way we seem more like a team that's working with you to get your child better and not necessarily just a group who's talking at you.
My big passion is something called antimicrobial stewardship, and basically, what that is is how do we make sure that we're using antibiotics in an appropriate way, so when should we use them, when should we not use them, when do we not need to use them. And the goal is to prevent us from having situations in the future where we really can't use them because we have such bacteria that really aren't treated by antibiotics.
I did a master's while I was in my fellowship, and a lot of the master's was focused on community engagement and community-focused care. And so we did some projects where we were looking at how do you integrate the community into the actual care process, including bringing people from the community onto boards and bringing people into the medical decision-making community instead of just having it be all physicians or all nurses or all staff at the hospital. And so I think that's something, again, that I really want to focus on and be able to bring that community feel into the hospital.
Board Certifications
- Pediatrics
Languages Spoken
- English
Medical Education
- University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health
Internship
- UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland
Residency
- UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital of Oakland
Fellowship
- Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
- Aetna HMO (specialists only)
- Aetna POS
- Aetna PPO
- BCBS Blue Precision HMO (specialists only)
- BCBS HMO (HMOI) (specialists only)
- BCBS PPO
- Cigna HMO
- Cigna POS
- Cigna PPO
- CountyCare *see insurance page
- Aetna Better Health *see insurance page
- Medicare
- Multiplan PPO
- PHCS PPO
- United Choice Plus POS/PPO
- United Options (PPO)
- United Select (HMO & EPO) (specialists only)
- United W500 Emergent Wrap
- Aetna Medicare Advantage HMO & PPO
- BCBS Medicare Advantage HMO & PPO
- Humana Medicare Advantage Choice PPO
- Humana Medicare Advantage Gold Choice PFFS
- Humana Medicare Advantage Gold Plus HMO
- United Choice HMO (specialists only)
- University of Chicago Health Plan (UCHP)
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