UF Department of Pediatrics welcomes the following new faculty members and division chiefs and is excited to share expansion plans!
New Pediatric Division Chiefs
Critical Care Medicine: Leslie Avery, M.D., completed law school at Columbia University, medical school at Yale University and residency at Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland.
She worked as a neonatal and pediatric hospitalist prior to her fellowship in pediatric critical care medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and Children’s Hospital Oakland.
She practiced at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford and most recently at Sunrise Children’s Hospital in Las Vegas, where she was medical director of the PICU and was active in quality assurance.
She has participated in clinical research on the effectiveness of a novel scorpion anti-venom and is interested in network-based clinical research trials.
Neurology: Peter Kang, M.D., is a pediatric neurologist and physician-scientist specializing in neuromuscular disorders.
Currently the principal investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Muscular Dystrophy Association, his laboratory research focuses on the genetics of muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular disorders.
He completed medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, residency in pediatrics at Yale-New Haven Hospital, residency in pediatric neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, and fellowship in clinical neurophysiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
He will be moving to Gainesville from Boston, where he is currently director of the Electromyography Laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Hospital Medicine: Michele Lossius, M.D., is the new Division Chief of Hospital Medicine.
She attended the University of Florida for her undergraduate studies, medical school and residency.
In 2006, she became a member of the Department of Pediatrics faculty.
Her research and clinical interests are related to Pompe disease, bronchiolitis and reducing practice variation.
She is actively involved in quality improvement initiatives as well as advocating for children.
New Faculty
- Ratna Acharya, M.D., General Pediatrics
- Leslie Avery, M.D., Critical Care Medicine
- Genie Beasley, M.D., Gastroenterology
- Kristina Carswell, M.D., General Pediatrics
- Jaclyn Otero, M.D., General Pediatrics
- Joseph Philip, M.D., Congenital Heart Center
- Ravi Samraj, M.D., Critical Care Medicine
- Elias Sayour, M.D., Hematology/Oncology and Neurology
- Kiran Upadhyay, M.D., Nephrology
- Himesh Vyas, M.D., Congenital Heart Center
New Residents and Fellows
We welcome 16 new residents, 7new fellows and our FIRST resident in our new Pediatric Neurology Residency.
New Facilities
We continue our march to building a 200+ bed state-of-the art children’s hospital.
The construction of a new gateway/entrance to the UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital has begun and is making great progress.
The new outpatient Clinical Research Center located within the Clinical and Translational Research Building (CTRB) opened across from the Medical Plaza last month.
The new Pediatric ICU for cardiac disorders is expected to open in March and we will soon renovate the current PICU.We plan to begin renovation of patient rooms on the 4th floor after the new PICU opens.
Renovation and expansion of the NICU is expected to begin in July 2014.
We completed renovation of faculty offices on the 2nd floor of the Human Development Building and this month we begin renovations on the 4th floor of the HD Building for additional offices.