Outstanding Chief Opportunity in Child Development / Developmental Pediatrics

Division Chief, Child Development

Legacy Leadership Opportunity with Tremendous Resources

On behalf of Shari Barkin, MD, MSHS, Professor and Chair, Department of Pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and Pediatrician-in-Chief, Children’s Hospital of Richmond (CHoR), CareerPhysician, the national leader in academic child health executive search is pleased to inform you of the national search to identify a transformational thought leader in developmental pediatrics to serve at the next Division Chief of Child Development at VCU and CHoR.

While pediatrics at VCU has existed for decades, in 2010 Children’s Hospital and VCU Children’s Medical Center combined to become a full-service hospital called the Children’s Hospital of Richmond. In April 2023, CHoR opened a beautiful 500,000 sq foot state-of-the-art children’s tower. Quickly, it exceeded expectations. The Department of Pediatrics is home to 150 faculty and offers more than 50 different subspecialties to provide comprehensive, high quality patient care. It is a level 1 trauma center and level 4 NICU, providing neonatal transport to the state. There is a north campus just a couple of miles away, CHoR at Brook Road that provides co-location of therapies so patients can experience integrated patient care. CHoR is an academic children’s hospital advancing the next generation of pediatricians with 54 residents and 26 fellows. Faculty is actively involved in research, funded by the NIH, the state, and foundations. VCU has a robust research infrastructure and a CTSA, known as the Wright Center, renewed in 2023.

Opportunity Highlights:

• The selected Chief will join an established multidisciplinary team with collaborators in social work, education and psychology supported by outstanding services, including speech language, occupational, and physical therapies as well as dentistry, feeding clinic, and sleep medicine. The Division of Developmental Pediatrics works closely with the Department of Psychiatry to work together related to behavioral needs.
• Students from graduate programs in social work, advanced practice providers, and medical students are involved in learning skills and augmenting the team’s work.
• The Division has been supported in part from a sustained state grant, serving the state’s children in developmental evaluation.
• To contribute to specialists in this important field, the Chief will work with the team to build a Developmental Behavioral Fellowship.
• Child Psychiatry recently hired a psychologist with both research and clinical interests in autism.
• Community partnerships with health systems, school districts and children’s organizations extend across Central Virginia.
• The department of pediatrics benefits from a dedicated Children’s Hospital Foundation (CHF) to support faculty and innovative initiatives to advance children’s health and healthcare.. 
• Work/life balance is a key reason why VCU Health providers enjoy long and satisfying careers in Richmond. Central Virginia is one of the most beautiful and iconic areas of the American landscape perfectly triangulated between mountains, beaches, and Washington, DC. 

For more details about this opportunity, or if you would like to recommend an individual(s) who exemplifies the qualities we are seeking in a candidate, please contact Mark Lozano at mark@careerphysician.com, or at 469-553-9311. All interactions will remain confidential, and no inquiries will be made without the consent of the applicant.

About CareerPhysician, LLC

CareerPhysician is a nationally respected executive search and leadership consulting firm with over 20 years of unprecedented success collaborating with children’s hospitals, academic medical centers and colleges of medicine. CareerPhysician has seen first-hand the indelible impact transformational physician and C-suite leaders can have on establishing productive cultures characterized by diversity, quality and wellness and yielding high-functioning teams capable of delivering strong fiscal performance and academic achievement.