Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine

Overview

The Pediatric Pulmonary and Sleep Division emphasizes the comprehensive and compassionate care of children with respiratory-related disorders, clinical and basic science research, and training in pulmonary medicine for medical students, residents, pulmonary fellows, and allied healthcare providers.

Our mission is to improve the health of children with respiratory-related disorders through fostering advances in patient care, thoughtful research, and the comprehensive training of health care providers.

Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion

Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine are committed to viewing all aspects of our division through a lens of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). This means actively seeking and supporting the recruitment of diverse faculty, staff, students, and leadership. This also means addressing social determinants of health that create barriers to our patient care. We work to identify the chronic effects of structural racism on children's health. We strive to be a division where difficult conversations are welcome, where concerns are met with action, and where anyone, regardless of their race, gender, sexuality, faith, or other identities can feel safe, heard, and included.

In the past two years, our division has made large gains toward these goals. In 2021, representatives from our faculty, nursing, and administrative groups began to volunteer their time to an EDI TaskForce. This group's purpose is to create and execute actionable efforts to overcome barriers within our division. In 2023, we brought on Dr. Terri Laguna as our new division head, known nationwide for her knowledge and advocacy for EDI.

EDI Taskforce Mission, Goals

The purpose of the EDI Taskforce is to identify barriers, develop solutions, and lead initiatives which will improve the quality of equity, diversity, and Inclusion within the Division. We meet once monthly to discuss strategies toward our outlined goals:

Improving quality care of all patients, regardless of race, language spoken, gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and religion by increasing equity through education and services.
Focusing on issues that we have control over within our Division, those that we have the ability to change.
Providing resources for continuing education to our Division about health disparities within the medical system and how we can learn and take action to address them.

EDI Projects

Spring/Summer 2022—EDI TaskForce’s Annual Needs Assessment
The EDI TaskForce developed a questionnaire to gather empirical data on the EDI barriers most affecting the faculty and staff within our division. Our data revealed two dominant barriers: diversity in recruitment, and lack of non-English language resources.
Summer/Fall 2022—AVS Translation Project
The 20 most common after-visit summaries used in our pulmonary and sleep clinics were collated, standardized, and translated into Spanish. The 5 most common languages among our population after Spanish were identified for future translation. The EDI TaskForce began looking for pathways to get non-standard AVSs translated as needed.
Winter/Spring 2023—Pulse Oximeter Education
After recent research revealed that many models of pulse oximeter read inaccurately on melanated skin, the EDI TaskForce sought opportunities to educate faculty and staff on the issue. TaskForce members will make presentations at multiple Grand Rounds sessions in the next six months.
Winter/Spring 2023—Updating Web Sites with Focused EDI Content
The EDI TaskForce worked collaboratively on content which better highlights the division’s EDI focus, and worked with the institution to place EDI front-and-center on our web pages.
Potential upcoming Projects:
- Organizing educational Health 101 talks geared toward patients to increase equitable health education.
- Pulling recruitment data into a funnel analysis to identify where diverse candidates are facing barriers to hiring.
- Increasing utilization of the Asthma Action Plan by making it accessible in multiple languages and easier for providers to include in notes.

Clinical Programs

The Pediatric Pulmonary and Sleep Division uses a multidisciplinary model of patient care. In addition to seeing the physician or nurse practitioner during the clinic visit, we have a nutritionist, social worker, nurse educator, and respiratory therapists that are available for consultation. At Seattle Children’s Hospital we have clinics in chest medicine/asthma, sleep disorders, and cystic fibrosis. We also provide sleep and chest/asthma clinics at the Children’s Bellevue and Everett branches.

Providers can refer patients to these clinics using the Seattle Children’s Hospital referral process.

For appointments, please call: (206) 987-2174, option 1

Research Programs

Examples of current research interests among divisional and non–divisional faculty who may work with fellows in the division include: lung development, lung injury models, asthma, RSV preventive therapies, clinical and basic research on pseudomonas endobronchial infection in cystic fibrosis, and gene therapy related to cystic fibrosis.

Training Programs

The Pediatric Pulmonary and Sleep Division (University of Washington School of Medicine/Seattle Children’s) is an Accredited 3-year Pediatric Pulmonary Fellowship Program, and participates in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP).

For more information, please visit the Pediatric Pulmonary Fellowship webpage.

Division Directory

Faculty

Matthew Farris Abts, MD

Clinical Associate Professor Co-Director, Aerodigestive Program Director, Bronchoscopy Services

Nathan Baertsch, PhD

Research Assistant Professor

Jeremy Chan, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor

Maida L Chen, MD

Professor Director, Pediatric Sleep Disorders Center

Jonathan Cogen, MD, MPH

Associate Professor Director, Pulmonary Fellowship Program

Mary Crocker, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor

Chelsea Davis, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor

Jason S. Debley, MD, MPH

Professor Interim Director, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Center for Respiratory Biology and Therapeutics (CRBT)

Amy Dettori, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor Associate Director, Pediatric Clerkship

Laurie C Eldredge, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor Co-Director, Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia Program

Laura Ellington, MD, MS

Assistant Professor

Ronald L Gibson, MD, PhD

Professor Director, Seattle Children’s, Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Development Center Director, Cystic Fibrosis Center Associate Director, Pulmonary Fellowship Program

Nicole Mayer Hamblett, PhD

Professor Co-Executive Director, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Development Network Coordinating Center Interim Director, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR)

Sonya L. Heltshe, PhD

Associate Professor

Lucas R. Hoffman, MD, PhD

Professor Vice Chair of Research, Department of Pediatrics Director, Seattle Children’s Therapeutics Development Center for CF Microbiology

Sarah Hofman DeYoung, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor

Vidhi Kapoor, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor

BreAnna Kinghorn, MD, MS

Assistant Professor Associate Director, Pediatric Pulmonary Training Center

Richard Kow, MD, MPH

Clinical Assistant Professor

Terri A. Laguna, MD, MSCS, ATSF

Division Chief, Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington

Carey T. Lockhart, MD

Clinical Associate Professor

Erin MacKintosh, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor UW Sleep Medicine Fellowship

Amalia Meier Magaret, PhD

Research Professor

Susan Marshall, MD

Professor Vice Chair of Education, Department of Pediatrics Director, Medical Education, Seattle Children’s

Thida Ong, MD

Associate Professor Associate Director, Cystic Fibrosis Center Medical Director, Quality Improvement

Robin Ortenberg, MD, MPH

Clinical Assistant Professor

Weston Powell, MD, PhD

Acting Assistant Professor

Gregory J Redding, MD

Professor Director, Pediatric Pulmonary Training Center

Stephen R. Reeves, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor

Margaret Rosenfeld, MD, MPH

Professor Associate Vice Chair of Clinical Research, Department of Pediatrics Interim Co-Center Director, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) Director, Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia Clinic