I am retired from clinical practice since June 30th, 2022. This site was once upon a time called ‘Allergies: A Leickly Story’. I had been posting mostly allergy related material for years. When I retired from Indiana University School of Medicine, Riley Hospital for Children in April 2018 this site was merged with my new employer- Allergy Partners. I hope I can find some my old material (to be archived, but available) and make it still available.

I have always enjoyed sharing projects, ideas, activities, and commentary. I decided to recreate the site. A couple things to keep in mind;

1. I am retired- no longer in clinical practice. That necessitated my changing those clinical pictures for something else. For a quick fix, the profile photo is me as an officer in the Indiana 49th Volunteer Infantry. This is a civil war re-enacting group.
2. I continue to have interests in clinical things especially food allergy. You will see posts on this site on that topic.
3. Oddly, I also continue to do pollen counting. That season is usually February through second frost. You will see pollen activity posted as well.
4. I like to share odd and funny things read, seen, and experienced- now unabashed.

I need to become more savvy in this format, but it should be fun.

Who am I?

Currently I am an Emeritus Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Indiana University School of Medicine. I specialized in asthma, allergy, and clinical immunology at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Indiana. I arrived in 1994 as a member of the section of Pediatric Pulmonology, Critical Care, and Allergy. I was the director of allergy services for the children’s hospital until the time of my retirement – 24 years!

I hail from the Midwest, specifically Cleveland, Ohio. I attended Cleveland Public Schools. I went to The Cleveland State University majoring in biology followed by two years as a Ph.D. student in pharmacology at Case Western Reserve University. I graduated from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. I was a resident and chief resident in pediatrics at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. I remained at Duke to pursue specialty training in allergy and clinical immunology. Specialty boards were successfully awarded in both Pediatrics and Allergy/Clinical Immunology.

After finishing my specialty training, I took a position as a senior staff allergist at Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, Michigan. I spent almost 10 years in Detroit being actively involved with the allergy/clinical immunology training program as the director of Pediatric Allergy/Clinical Services. I also had the honor of being awarded an National Institute of Health (NIH) grant to serve as the principle investigator for the Detroit sites of the National Co-operative Inner-City Asthma Study (NCICAS). My taking a most unique opportunity to come to Indiana University and James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Children required me to step down during the last year of the NCICAS program, however I was still active with many asthma projects within the program.

I had heard that there hasn’t been a practicing allergist in the Riley/IU system for over 20 years prior to my arrival. I was the first since some time in the 70’s.

Given my NIH funded background in the public health aspects of asthma, I was asked to participate in a Marion County Health Department initiative dealing with asthma.  A few years later,  Dr. Greg Wilson then the state health commissioner asked me to lead a Center for Disease Control sponsored group charged with developing an  asthma plan for the state of Indiana. I had the honor to lead the Indiana Joint Asthma Coalition (InJAC) in the creation of that plan and for the first few years of putting the plan into operation. The workings of InJAC can be viewed on a website and the state asthma plan is also available for review.  It is very easy to see how an allergist and how allergy has a very significant role in asthma.

I am was a fellow in the Academy of Pediatrics and still an emeritus fellow in the Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. The entitlement of Professor of Clinical Pediatrics was awarded and added to my business card based on my clinical work here at Riley through my outreach programs through the Marion County and Indiana State health departments and through my teaching of  pediatric residents at Riley and medical students on the pediatric clinical rotations.

I had/have been active with publishing having authored articles on topics involving hives, immune deficiency, treatments, food allergy, and asthma. Most of my published work has dealt with asthma. When I was involved with NICAS, one of my areas of interest was and is adherence to therapeutic programs for asthma care. My most recent publication was an epidemiologic study of a large database of peanut sensitive children.

I had been very active with the Academy of Pediatrics having served as a speaker for many CME programs and on the planning committees for both Super CME and Practical Pediatrics courses. I have been the moderator for a number of AAP Practical Pediatrics programs for the past five years.

My clinic practice was initially mostly at Riley Hospital, downtown Indianapolis followed by full time activity at the IU Health North office. Through the years at both sites I saw children with a wide variety of allergic and potentially allergic conditions. Asthma is one of the most common reasons for a consultation in my clinic early on, however in my last 10-15 years of practice, food allergy was a major priority. The other conditions include nasal, skin, and gastrointestinal allergy.

My work with food allergy helped establish a Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) sponsored Food Allergy Center of Excellence. I was also involved with a study of oral immunotherapy for peanut allergy PALISADE sponsored by AImmune. We did very well with recruiting and were one of the top sites.

My work with asthma both in the county and the state has lead to my receiving two public health awards and I have been involved with one of the largest epidemiological studies regarding inner-city asthma.  All this occurred without any formal training in public health.  I decided to go back to school and obtain that formal training. In May ’08 I was awarded my Masters in Public Health with emphasis on epidemiology. Imagine going back to school after so many years. Needless to say, I was nervous about doing papers and taking exams. I truly enjoyed the program and see a real benefit for a public health perspective with asthma and now food allergy which really should be looked at as a public health problem.

After leaving academics, I was in the world of private practice allergy for 4 years prior to retirement.

That should just about wrap up this already lengthy discourse about me. It makes sense to make folks aware of where you came from, what you have done, and what you do beyond the confines of the clinic situation.

Oh, what about me personally??? Me outside the clinic. Here are those highlights. My wife Linda and I have been married for 49 years. We have three children that we are very proud of. We have added a son-in- law and a daughter-in-law who are great additions to the family and now 5 grandchildren. With taking on the private practice, we moved from our log home to Columbus, Indiana. When I am not playing games on the computer (much to my wife’s agitation) I am re-enacting. I love history and re-enacting is a chance to live that history. For the past few years we (yes Linda too) had been involved with Civil War re-enacting. I was a lieutenant in the Indiana 49th Volunteer Infantry Company F. Camping in canvas tents without flooring and no electricity and cooking over campfires with cast iron cookware can be fun. There is nothing like it. I also had a 1967 Pontiac Lemans convertible- also known as the poor man’s GTO. This was my second 67 Lemans. The first was totaled in a wreck in the 1970’s but alas, my Lemans is with someone else. I keep busy with a rather large Lionel train set-up. I have also been doing the geneology thing too.

That is all I have to say about that!