Division Director Infectious Diseases

The Department of Pediatrics at Children’s Mercy seeks a creative and dynamic leader to serve as Division Director of Infectious Diseases at the rank of Associate Professor or above. The Division Director will lead a talented team of clinicians, researchers, and educators. Responsibilities include leading the clinical, research, educational, and quality objectives of the division. Candidates should have a vision of the future of pediatric infectious diseases, be mission driven, and possess evidence of previous leadership experience.

Other desired characteristics include
1) a track record of scholarly productivity;
2) history of mentorship that includes developing postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty members;
3) clinical or research finance experience;
4) successful collaborations across subspecialties and disciplines;
5) unwavering commitment to the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion; and
6) commitment to developing a culture of innovation and team connection.

The division includes 12 MD/DO faculty members (many of whom have additional roles across the organization), 4 advanced practice providers, 3 postdoctoral fellows, 2 pharmacists, part-time PhD statistical support, and division administrative support. All pediatric residents complete an  during their 2nd year of training or 4th year for Med/Peds. This dynamic division provides inpatient consultations across 3 clinical services. The general  immunocompromised (IC) services care for children at the main Adele Hall campus, and a third service consults on patients at our community sites CM Kansas and the University of Kansas (KU).

Approximately 2,000 consults are seen between the general and IC services at the main campus annually, with an additional 60 across the community sites. Ambulatory clinics include general , international travel, adoption, penicillin allergy delabeling, special immunology, and fellows’ clinic. As one of the first hospitals in the country to create an Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP), the ASP team has been on the forefront of innovative stewardship work clinically as well as generating new knowledge about stewardship practices.

In the past 10 years, the division has added a robust ambulatory ASP presence, working in collaboration with the two emergency departments, and three urgent cares in the CM system as well as affiliated pediatric practices using quality improvement methodology to reduce diagnostic testing and antibiotic overuse.

Creating new knowledge through research is an important and large part of the work of this division with federal, foundation, and industry grants and contracts supporting basic, translational, clinical, and quality improvement research with grants totaling more than $11 million for FY25. The research interests are broad and include neonatal Escherichia coli infections, severe adverse drug reactions, school and community-based respiratory virus epidemiology, and clinical trials assessing new vaccines and medications, and epidemiology of respiratory and gastrointestinal viral infections in collaboration with the Director of Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Infectious Disease Laboratory.

CM is also a hub site for the Pediatric Pandemic Network, with members of the division focusing on preparation and research-based pediatric care in emergencies, disasters, and pandemics.

Creating an environment that fosters learning through trainee centric education is a primary focus of the . In addition to a successful long-standing postdoctoral fellowship program, the  provides clinical education to all second-year categorical pediatric residents, fourth year combined internal medicine-pediatric residents, hospital medicine fellows, and internal medicine  through consult rotations. An advanced  is also available for interested trainees. Didactic education is provided throughout the academic year for all residents.

Medical student electives are also available. The ASP team has created a stewardship track for fellows interested in antimicrobial stewardship focused careers, in addition to a wide variety of research and quality improvement opportunities to meet their scholarly…