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Quayle named director of pediatric emergency medicine

Physician also to be installed as Dana Brown Chair for Emergency Medicine

by Kristina SauerweinMay 4, 2017

Robert Boston

Kimberly S. Quayle, MD, has been named director of the Division of Emergency Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She also will be installed May 22 as the Dana Brown Chair for Emergency Medicine at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

“Dr. Quayle is tireless in her hard work and devotion to pediatric emergency medicine and the School of Medicine,” said Gary A. Silverman, MD, PhD, the Harriet B. Spoehrer Professor and head of Washington University’s Department of Pediatrics. “She is a skilled and compassionate physician who has made, and continues to make, a difference in the lives of hundreds of children and their families.”

Additionally, Quayle has distinguished herself as an educator and a researcher whose large study on pediatric head trauma, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2014, presented a novel analysis of how children most frequently suffer head injuries.

“I’m very excited to lead the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine as we strive toward continued excellence in patient care, ongoing quality research to impact the field of emergency medicine and meaningful education for trainees,” Quayle said. “Our division includes dedicated faculty and fellows who treat sick or injured children. It also includes the Section of Child Abuse Pediatrics, whose members provide compassionate medical care and advocacy for the most vulnerable children.”

She succeeds David M. Jaffe, MD, who joined the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, in 2015. Quayle has served as the division’s interim director since.

Quayle earned an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Missouri, Columbia. She earned her medical degree from Washington University in 1988.

The Missouri native has stayed at the School of Medicine ever since. She completed her residency at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, rising to pediatric chief resident in 1991. Quayle also completed her fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine on the Medical Campus.

In 1994, she joined the faculty at the School of Medicine.

“Pediatric emergency medicine allows us to positively impact the care of children and families during unexpected medical crises,” she said.

Washington University School of Medicine‘s 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient-care institutions in the nation, currently ranked seventh in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

Kristina covers pediatrics, surgery, medical education and student life. In 2020, she received a gold Robert G. Fenley Writing Award for general staff writing from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), and in 2019, she received the silver award. Kristina is an author and former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Los Angeles Times, where she was part of a team of journalists that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for breaking news. Additionally, she covered the 2014 Ferguson unrest for TIME magazine and, for eight years, wrote a popular parenting column for BabyCenter.com.