What is your hometown?
Traverse City, Michigan
When did you join the University of Iowa faculty?
1994
How/when did you become interested in science and medicine?
I grew up as my father went through medical school and his pediatric residency.
What interested you to pursue a career in Pediatrics?
The uniquely positive attitude that children have the ability to maintain even in the face of severe illness.
Is there a teacher or mentor who helped shaper you career?
My father and my Ph.D. mentor, Dr. Clinton Webb.
How or why did you choose the University of Iowa?
I chose to do my Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship at Iowa because Dr. Ron Lauer had established a program that nurtured basic science research and was NIH-funded. This dedicated approach to fellow research guaranteed my ability to get to the lab and pursue my research interests.
The University of Iowa’s faculty members are united to provide exceptional patient care while advancing innovations in research and medical education. How does your work help translate new discoveries into patient centered care and education?
I hope that my research is providing novel and useful insights into fundamental mechanisms of inflammatory signaling. Eventually I would love to see these ideas result in clinically useful innovations.
Please describe your professional interests.
My lab studies a protein called ClC-3. It is a chloride-proton antiporter that is required for reactive oxygen signaling. We are very interested in the ability of the protein to modulate the inflammatory response to cytokines.
What led you to do you fellowship training in Pediatric Cardiology?
A passion for cardiovascular physiology combined with a love of caring for children.
Please describe your interest in the management of post-operative congenital heart disease repair patients.
Patients that have undergone repair of congenital heart defects present a variety of complex challenges involving changes in both cardiac and vascular function. We still have a lot to learn about how to optimize the care of these patients.
How does working in a collaborative and comprehensive academic medical center benefit your work?
There are a lot of very smart and very passionate academicians in this environment. It is fun to work with people like that.
What are some of your outside interests?
Playing the guitar, painting, watching politics and meddling in the lives of my six children.
Do you have an insight or philosophy that guides you in your professional work?
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) said that one should "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."
If you could change one thing about the world (or the world of medicine), what would it be?
I would increase support for biomedical research!
What is the biggest change you've experienced in your field since you were a student?
The growth of Intensive Care Units as a percent of inpatient pediatrics. The average acuity of illness in children’s hospitals has grown dramatically.
What one piece of advice would you give to today's students?
Carefully search the vast career options available to physicians until you find a role that gets you excitedly out of bed every morning. Do not settle for one that is simply comfortable.
What do you see as "the future" of medicine?
I think that we will be amazed by the amount of predictive health screening that will soon become available for both genetic and epigenetic determinants of multifactorial diseases. We may soon be routinely “treating” diseases that have not yet manifested any symptoms.
In what ways are you engaged with the greater Iowa public (i.e. population based research, mentoring high school students, sharing your leadership/expertise with organizations or causes, speaking engagements off campus, etc.)?
Primarily by giving research seminars around the country.