I am a pediatric hospitalist specializing in the care of children admitted to the hospital with acute illnesses. I work on the hospital medicine teams at the Cincinnati Children’s Burnet and Liberty campuses, including the inpatient complex care team for patients with complex medical conditions and those who are technology-dependent.
Due to some health problems as a child, I spent a lot of time seeing physicians and being in the hospital when I was young. These early exposures inspired me to become a physician. I hoped to have the same impact on a person’s health that my physicians had on mine.
As a pediatrician, I enjoy the dynamic of working with children and their families to improve health. I was drawn to hospital medicine because of the diversity of disease processes and patients. Every day is something different! As a hospitalist, I also have the opportunity to be actively engaged in the medical education of medical students and resident trainees, and to participate in hospital-wide quality improvement and safety efforts.
I view patient care from a team approach and as a hospitalist, it is my role to engage the patient, family, consultants and other staff members in coordinating the best care plan for a specific patient. At the center of this are the patient and their family. I am a believer in shared decision-making and incorporating family values and needs into the child's care plan.
My research is primarily in medical education, with interests in interprofessional collaboration and scholarly approaches to curriculum development, program evaluation, and innovative teaching methods. As the director of education and career development for the Division of Hospital Medicine, I oversee division educational activities, including how we work with trainees and faculty development.
In my free time, I enjoy traveling, exploring Cincinnati's local parks and hiking trails, trying out new recipes in the kitchen and volunteering through community nonprofits. Each summer, I spend a week volunteering as the medical lead for Camp Holiday Trails, an overnight camp for children with special medical needs in Charlottesville, Virginia. Having benefited from attending camp as a child, I want to provide other children with similar opportunities to grow and gain confidence and independence.