Le Bonheur recruitment wave brings new talent to Memphis

Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital is moving forward on plans to add 45 more staff members in the next two years as part of a five-year initiative that will see a total of 85 new faculty joining their staff.

Dr. Jonathan McCullers, Le Bonheur pediatrician-in-chief and UTHSC chair of the Department of Pediatrics, is leading the efforts to bring in new talent.

“The hospital put out a ten-year strategic plan in 2010 called ‘Vision 20/20’, and it was about making a move to a more academic health care model, where things like research would be an integral part of what goes on at the hospital. You can improve care for kids if you are actively trying to push the boundaries through research as to what is the best care,” he says.

Le Bonheur has hired 20 new scientists and clinicians in the first two years of the program.

The newest to come on board this year is Dr. Joan Han. She will lead the hospital’s new obesity program, which will include an obesity research center and a new obesity clinic called The Le Bonheur Healthy Lifestyles Clinic. Han is a translational researcher in obesity from The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

In the next few years, McCullers explains that Le Bonheur also plans to create new research centers for pediatric asthma and early childhood development.

“We’ve already hired several basic scientists for the asthma center and we plan to hire more, and the early childhood development center is on the horizon as the next thing we will start working on,” says McCullers.

By Michael Waddell