Katherine A. VandenHeuvel, MD

I've always loved children and appreciated the unique medical conditions and needs they have. I grew up with a chronic disease that had me regularly interacting with healthcare providers, particularly pediatricians and pediatric specialists.

In the field of pathology, I focus on getting the best diagnostic information for each individual patient. Every day, my colleagues and I guide the approach to treatment with our findings. My approach to my practice is to balance information with compassion. Even though I do not meet many patients face-to-face, I look at each specimen as a unique opportunity to provide them, their family and their doctors with timely and accurate information.

I am a pediatric surgical pathologist with a specific focus on pediatric renal and neuroblastic tumors and renal pathology. I love having a specialty like renal pathology because it allows me to form a personal relationship with one set of clinicians — nephrologists — and to follow the course of a patient's condition over time.

Kidney biopsy diagnosis requires some special techniques, such as electron microscopy and fluorescent staining, that very few other biopsies need. Although these techniques take extra time, I'm in contact with the patient’s kidney doctors every step of the way.

My research involves understanding and treating kidney injuries that are related to sickle cell disease. We want to clarify the genes expressed in individual cells of the same Wilms tumor and how widely different they can be. We’re exploring how what we know about membranous nephropathy in adults also fits the disease in children.

In my free time, I enjoy singing with the Young Professionals Choral Collective here in Cincinnati. I performed in the student musical every year in medical school. In an alternate life, I would have been a librarian.