Mar 12 A Pediatric Resident’s Reflections on Childhood Vaccines
(March 12, 2026)
This Bold Voices blog post was written by one of Allies for Children’s partners about a subject that is relevant to their work as well as ours.
Today’s blog post was written by: Hannah Roach, MD, Member of the PA Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a Third Year Resident of Internal Medicine in Pediatrics.
Pediatric residents are witnesses to some of the most remarkable things. On any given day, you may be in the newborn nursery—checking eyes and noses, reassuring new parents that breastfeeding will take time, teaching them how to get an accurate temperature on a young child. You see a whole new family, new person, new world created.
Other days, you’re in clinic and you’re picking out books and stickers—you’re painting fluoride on teeth and putting fun band-aids on scabby knees.
Another day, you’re watching a child be placed prone on the ventilator in the pediatric intensive care unit due to Influenza A. The same hands that checked palmar reflexes last week are squeezing the hands of a parent with a dying child.
We are uniquely positioned on the front lines of preventative medicine and the illnesses we hope to avoid. We have amazing tools to keep children safe—bike helmets, seatbelts, car seats, sunscreen, safety locks etc. However, it feels like one of our tools is constantly under threat, data is ignored and fear-mongering and anti-science rhetoric are echoed loudly. Vaccines are made to be the villain again and again—yet I have never seen a vaccine lead to a child being in the ICU. I have never seen a vaccine kill a child. I cannot say the same for flu. I have never seen a vaccine cause neuro-devastation. I cannot say the same for bacterial meningitis.
This is what I tell parents now. I ask their concerns, their hesitations regarding vaccines. They don’t want something bad to happen—I completely agree, I don’t want that either! And that’s why I recommend vaccines.
On good days, they take my word for it and I’m honored, humbled, grateful to have moved a tiny needle. That trust is one that I do not take for granted. Good days are too few and far between. It is getting harder—ideologies once largely sequestered to deep, dark parts of the internet are now being broadcast from government offices. Medical facts become partisan policy.
I am more than a pediatric resident, however. I am a sister. And when I have families tell me they are worried about autism, I have to take a step back. Do I ask them why they think autism is so bad? Do I tell them that I’d rather have my brothers be autistic and alive than neurotypical and dead? Do I step on my soapbox about the importance of having a world with so many people in it who think differently? I take a breath – state the facts, including that numerous studies have found no link between autism and vaccines.
The same year Wakefield’s article (the article that proposed a link between autism and the MMR vaccine, which was later retracted and debunked) was published, my twin brother and I got our MMR vaccines. His second paper was published the year my younger brother got his—three years after my twin was diagnosed with autism, and two years after my younger brother was diagnosed. I am so, so grateful my parents did this for me and my brothers. I am very privileged—I am the child of an infectious disease doctor and an internist with expertise in preventative medicine. Anti-vaccine pseudoscience didn’t have a chance in my household. But, not everyone has this. We rely on the people we trust to tell us the truth—the pediatrician is a huge part of this. We as providers have to be louder than the misleading, be it purposeful or not. We have to lead with empathy, curiosity, kindness, and do what others may not—tell the truth. Again and again and again.
Learn more about child and adolescent vaccines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics Recommended Immunization Schedule at healthychildren.org.