2026 Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair
June 15, 2026
Pediatrician Spotlight on Piper Sandel, MD, MPH, FAAP
Pediatrician Spotlight is a segment in Coastal Currents highlighting one of AAP-CA3’s Outstanding Chapter Members or programs.
Howard Taras, MD, FAAP, is a general pediatrician who specializes in consultation to school districts, with a focus on students with special health care needs and school health policies. He began his medical career in Canada (McMaster Med School–Hamilton, Ontario and pediatric residency at Univ of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children). His trajectory to school medicine began here in San Diego with a 2-year fellowship in Community Pediatrics.
Get to know Dr. Taras by reading his pediatrician spotlight!
AAP-CA3: What is your current job/professional responsibilities? I continue to work part-time at UCSD, practicing school health consultation across the state of California, and teaching about school health to residents in UCSD and Navy’s Pediatric residency programs. I support Dr. Piper Sandel who has brought vigor and a wealth of new expertise to the field of ‘school health consultation’.
AAP-CA3: How did you first get involved in the AAP? I joined the AAP during my fellowship years, when I first arrived in San Diego, attending meetings. I was largely associated with its “Day Care” committee, which was particularly active in the late-80’s and early 90s.
AAP-CA3: Why should pediatricians join the AAP and their AAP Chapter? Especially nowadays with remote “zoom” meetings and CME, it is easy to feel remote from colleagues outside of your own practice. The AAP in general (through its Sections and Councils) and the chapter in particular offers pediatricians a true professional community. To prevent burnout, each pediatrician needs to recognize that their own struggles, challenges and rewards are curiously similar to those of their colleagues, and the AAP has become one of the very few venues left to achieve that.
AAP-CA3: What is your current role in the AAP-CA3 chapter? I still represent the field of school health at various committees and meetings at the chapter level, but recognize that the future belongs to Dr. Sandel and others who are bringing new life into the health issues facing school-age children and schools.
AAP-CA3: What do you enjoy most about being a chapter member? The sense of professional community and collegiality is as important as the professional growth and sharing of information.
AAP-CA3: How does the chapter support your passion? Without generalist and specialist pediatrician colleagues to bounce things off of in regular committee meetings, it would be far too easy for me to drift from what is “practical” in the field of school health, to what is unrealistic or medically out-of-date.
AAP-CA3: Did you have a mentor who influenced you to become the physician that you are now? Dr. Phil Nader and Dr. Jeff Black, both AAP chapter members when I began this career, formed my early professional role. More recently, Dr. Mark Chenven (psychiatrist, but also a chapter member) has been an essential part of my understanding of school age children’s mental health needs and resources. Dr. Mark Nespeca (Neurology) and Dr. Mark Sawyer (Infectious Diseases) are essential to how I guide schools on policy. School nurses and special educators are my all-time heroes who have taught me most everything I know.
AAP-CA3: What do you like to do in your spare time? Now that I’m working part-time and solely as a school health consultant, I am free to travel more. Crossing the Pacific and national parks would make sense …. but there is just something about Europe. In addition to travel, I try to emulate “fine cuisine” in my not-so-professional kitchen –- which has been fun (albeit more for me, than for my hapless dinner guests).