Dr. Van Ginkel has a distinguished career as a champion for women’s and children’s health and for supporting program initiatives with sound research. She is presently professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and president of Every Child Succeeds (ECS), an $8M home visitation program she spearheaded with three founding partners: Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, United Way of Greater Cincinnati, and the Hamilton County Community Action Agency/Head Start.

ECS is a regional prevention program that is based upon the knowledge that early brain stimulation is critically important for a child’s long-term development. The program serves first-time, high-risk mothers and their infants from the prenatal period until the child is three years old.

An innovative strategist and leader, Van Ginkel has been instrumental in establishing public policy on social service issues and health care. Examples include obtaining funding for a biomedical incubator at the University of Cincinnati that is creating products for the commercial market, chairing three successful health services levy campaigns, yielding $410 million, and turning around Drake Center, a failing, old established Cincinnati institution for long-term care. 

She has served on the board of a for-profit developer of internet search engines for schools and on many community non-profit boards including Bio/Start, WGUC Classical Public Radio (chair), Child Health Statistics Center, Junior League of Greater Cincinnati (advisory), Xavier University (President’s Advisory Council), Cincinnatus Association (first female president in 70 years), Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Greater Cincinnati Fine Arts Fund Cabinet, United Way of Greater Cincinnati, Hoxworth Blood Center (first female president in the country), and NetWellness Consumer Health Information Network.

She is a passionate adventurous traveler and has visited most countries in the world. She has written travel articles and won a national award for a travel series on destinations. Her popular book, Life Begins and Ends with Girlfriends, written with a friend and co-author, was published in October 2007.