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Posted: 12-Sep-23
Location: Kansas City, Missouri
Type: Full Time
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Internal Number: 1
The Department of Pediatrics at Children’s Mercy (CM) seeks a creative and scholarly leader to serve as Division Director of Hematology/Oncology/Bone Marrow Transplant (H/O/BMT) and Medical Director of the H/O/BMT Program at CM. The Division Director will lead the clinical, educational, research and quality missions of a comprehensive academic H/O/BMT program.
The Division Director will be responsible for establishing collaborative ties with the whole of the pediatric enterprise to ensure the welfare and improve the health of the children in the region. This is a clinical faculty position offering an academic appointment at the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Medicine, rank to be commensurate with experience. CM is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to increasing the diversity of our faculty and staff and fostering their success when hired. Members of underrepresented groups are welcome and strongly encouraged to apply. For additional information, please visit our website at www.cmh.edu.
The foremost qualities necessary for this position are vision for the field of H/O/BMT and a track record of academic achievement in H/O/BMT as evidenced by sustained extramural funding. Other desired characteristics include a track record of: 1) developing young clinicians into future leaders in pediatrics; 2) participation in academic infrastructure and finances; 3) leadership experience or potential in a high volume, diverse H/O/BMT service; 4) collaborating successfully with hospital and medical partners in managing H/O/BMT’s work flow while maintaining the highest value of care; and 5) developing a culture of high team accountability and professionalism. The individual selected for this position will be a strategic and highly communicative leader who is a MD/DO or MD/DO/PhD and who is board certified in H/O/BMT. As H/O/BMT Division Director, the individual reports to the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics.
General Information. The Division of Hematology/Oncology/BMT is composed of 26 board certified H/O faculty divided into 3 respective sections – Hematology (6), Oncology (10), and BMT (4), with supporting H/O Hospitalists (6). Clinical care is additionally provided by outpatient APN’s who are specialized within each of the 3 groups (H/O/BMT) and who serve in direct patient care and case management. The Division has a long-standing fellowship in H/O and a recently established fellowship in Pediatric Coagulation. Dedicated inpatient APN’s provide direct patient care with residents on the inpatient H/O resident service, and all care on the coagulation, BMT, and chemotherapy services. H/O/BMT social workers assume primary patient responsibilities and are teamed with specific physician/APN dyads to form a patient’s primary care triad. A research support team is embedded within the Division serving the needs of each section ensuring trial, regulatory and clinical care compliance and accreditations. Clinical care occurs in a fully dedicated H/O/BMT Clinic and a HEPA-filtered, positive pressured H/O/BMT inpatient unit, with close integration of H/O/BMT nursing leadership across these locations. Outreach clinics also occur. The Division provides 24/7 in-house coverage and resident support, fully staffed by the H/O Hospitalist group. The Division focuses on all facets of academic medicine (clinical, research, education and advocacy) by engaging the faculty and staff in the unique passions and areas of focus that brought them to H/O/BMT and assisting them in maximizing their potential for their own career achievement, as well as that of the Division and Children’s Mercy.
In a collaborative Division approach, each section led by a Section Chief pursues efforts to uniquely develop and continually improve programmatic efforts in the four academic domains. The Hematology Section has active programs in coagulation, sickle cell, and general hematology. The Kansas City Regional Hemophilia Treatment Center (HTC) is among the five largest in the country and is a 340B program. The Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program cares for over 300 children, and hematologists oversee the Anticoagulation Management Team, the Coagulation Consult Service, staff the Vascular Anomalies Specialty Clinic, and co-direct the Pediatric Stroke team. Members hold leaderships positions in national organizations such as the Hemostasis and Thrombosis Research Society, AAP PREP Hematology/Oncology, the International Pediatric Stroke Study, and ASPHO. Over 20 active clinical research studies are overseen by hematology faculty.
The Oncology Section consists of programs focused on specific cancers (5), patient populations & diagnostics (4), and therapeutics (2). Tumor board/cancer conferences occur 1-2x/week. Faculty (MD/DO/PhD) within and outside the Division have a growing footprint in cancer research with current focus and grant support in clinical trials, immunotherapeutics, targeted leukemia discovery, cancer genomics, informatics and big data, brain tumors, cancer resistance, biomarker development in leukemias and sarcomas, survivorship, supportive care and impact of ethnic diversity, particularly in the Hispanic population. Children’s Mercy, as the pediatric partner, is a full Consortium member of the NCI-designated Kansas University Cancer Center (KUCC) with active research collaborations with the KUCC and the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, the third member of the NCI Cancer Center consortium. Radiation is provided by a Pediatric Radiation Therapist at KUCC with a proton center opening in the Fall 2021. Children’s Mercy is an active COG institution with several faculty in national clinical trial leadership positions, and recently became a non-core member of the COG Pediatric Early Phase-Clinical Trial Network (PEP-CTN). CM has the ability to perform all diagnostic genetic, genomic, and flow studies in house and is a COG approved institution for cytogenetics and ALL flow cytometry. A tumor and germline tissue bank collects all patient samples and is anonymously annotated with clinical data from the CM Tumor Registry. The Cancer Genomics program, with in-house sequencing of every tumor and constitutional tissue, is highly active in multi-institutional research collaborations. CM repeatedly ranks in the top 30 USNWR children’s cancer centers. Further growth in research will be supported by the awarding of three remaining open endowed chairs for childhood cancer research.
Our Blood & Marrow Transplantation/Cellular Therapy is a both FACT-accredited and COG-accredited Transplant Center, allowing referral from other centers of on-trial patients. We are also a regional referral center for BMT of off-trial patients. The BMT unit has up to 15 available beds with positive pressure, fully HEPA-filtered rooms and hallways. The program shares a stem cell processing lab with the KUCC adult BMT program, one of the largest in the country. It is capable in all stem cell source transplants including related, unrelated, matched, mismatched, T-cell depleted, haplo-identical, bone marrow, peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood. CM was one of the early institutions to offer CAR-T cell therapy including investigator-initiated CAR-T trials, and as a result CM was the second institution to be invited into the multi-site trial of tisagenlecleucel, with shared oversight by CM physicians. Building on the early cellular therapy discovery efforts at CM, the program can perform complicated graft manipulation for either clinical or research endeavors. Immunotherapeutics and cellular therapy are significant areas of research and programmatic development. Our vision to lead in the field influenced the construction of a GMP facility in the new CMRI building. We intend to apply discoveries from the immunotherapeutics program towards the improvement of cancer directed therapies, solid organ transplantation and to other diseases of immunologic origin. The BMT section has an active clinical research portfolio of studies with anticipated development of a state-of-the-art Immunotherapeutics clinical and research program of laboratory and clinical investigators spearheaded by one the three remaining open Endowed Cancer Chairs, the Immunotherapy Chair. Further details for all aspects of the Division can be found on the CMH H/O/BMT webpages which includes over 10 years of Cancer Center Annual reports.
About Children’s Mercy
Children’s Mercy is a nationally recognized, free-standing children’s hospital founded in 1897 to provide care for poor and ill children of Kansas City. The primary service area of CM encompasses 150 counties in Missouri and Kansas. As an independent children’s hospital, CM offers a comprehensive suite of departments, centers, and clinics. This includes an autism center, cancer center, dental clinic, fetal health clinic, genetics clinic, heart center, sleep center, sports medicine center, and a transplant center. CM also provides emergency, intensive care, and urgent care services, social work service, developmental and behavioral health services, and hearing and speech services. In 2019, CM conducted almost 600,000 total visits, including over 4,000 telemedicine visits, almost 190,000 emergency and urgent care visits, and 20,000 surgical cases. CM is also one of only ten centers in the nation verified as a Level 1 Children’s Surgery Center by the American College of Surgeons and the only pediatric Level I Trauma Center in the region. CM subspecialties are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report in the top 50 of all assessed pediatric subspecialties. CM has over 750 doctors in more than 40 subspecialties who see children of all ages for everything from routine checkups to quaternary care. We enthusiastically complement our nationally ranked clinical care with robust community support programs that keep kids safe and healthy.
Education
Education is a core tenet of CM. CM provides education opportunities to nursing students, medical students, residents, and fellows, as well as offering internships. Certificate and master’s programs are also operated in conjunction with its academic partners, the University of Kansas (KU) and the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC). CM supports over 1,400 learners annually, including residents, fellows, and others who come to the system to learn from the faculty. CM provides elective rotations and sub-internships to students at any accredited allopathic or osteopathic medical school. It is also the site for pediatric clerkships for both UMKC and KU medical students. There are also opportunities for medical students to pursue research through CM. CM is highly active in Graduate Medical Education with accredited residencies in pediatrics, med/peds, child neurology, pediatric dentistry, pediatric optometry, and pharmacy. CM offers more than 40 fellowship programs across numerous areas, developing the next generation of subspecialists.
Research
Children’s Mercy is dedicated to improving the health and well-being of children through engagement in world-class, collaborative translation research. A recent strategic planning initiative established The Children’s Mercy Research Institute (CMRI) to enhance our research infrastructure and grow our research portfolio. Through the generosity of two philanthropic gifts totaling $150 million (the largest donation to a children’s hospital to support research), CM constructed a nine story, 375,000 square foot facility providing scientists access to state-of-the-art technology and ample dry and wet lab space. The CMRI building officially opened in the fall of 2020. In addition, these generous gifts are supporting enhancement of scientific programs and targeted recruitment. Research conducted today includes basic, translational and clinical research across many pediatric subspecialties. Areas of research strength include Precision Therapeutics, Genomics Medicine, Population Health, and Innovations in Health Care Delivery. The CMRI provides core resources and support for CM faculty, from research topic development through grant management and trial coordination. CM recently renewed its T32 training grant in Clinical Pharmacology, having trained 24 post-doctoral fellows, most of whom have competed successfully for extramural funding for their research programs. Children’s Mercy has been the pediatric partner for the Frontiers Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at the University of Kansas since the CTSI’s inception. This regional CTSI program comprises four universities (including three medical schools) and three health systems on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas state line. Several CM faculty members have been recipients of KL2 and pilot grant funding, and others have assumed leadership roles within Frontiers. Furthermore, Frontiers is transitioning to a more inclusive administrative structure in which leadership of cores and functions is shared by investigators at two institutions, providing additional opportunities for faculty to become actively engaged in clinical and translational research.
About Kansas City:
Straddling both Missouri and Kansas, the Kansas City Metropolitan Area is an affordable and comfortable place to live and raise a family. The Metro’s anchor city, Kansas City, Missouri, is the largest city in Missouri and has many great museums, a busy downtown, multiple professional sports franchises, an exciting music scene, and many charming neighborhoods. Throughout the Metro area, you will find highly ranked public schools, great parks and other green spaces, and lots of amazing people. Kansas City is large enough to provide the amenities of a metropolitan area, while small enough to allow for easy commutes, accessible amenities and a very high quality of life.
Ideal Qualifications and Experience
- An MD or equivalent and board certification in H/O/BMT
- Current academic rank of Associate Professor or Professor
- A strong record of clinical and academic achievement
- Well-developed research program in H/O/BMT, ideally in cancer genomics or immunotherapeutics
- Demonstrated success in advancing medical education, patient care and research
- A commitment to our true north pillars: quality and safety, people, patient experience, delivery, and stewardship
- Fosters and models our values: kindness, curiosity, inclusion, team, and integrity
- A history of success with integrating clinical and research missions
- A deep commitment to fostering and supporting programs that address equity, inclusion, and diversity
- A track record of partnership with academic medical centers
- Experience with or a desire to learn and utilize LEAN methodologies
- Strong interpersonal skills and the ability and commitment to collaborate with leadership at partner institutions
Nominations and Applications (cover letter and curriculum vitae) should be submitted by e-mail to:
All materials will be treated as confidential.
