Noted Pediatrician Joins Children’s Health Foundation

PALO ALTO – Ron G. Rosenfeld, M.D., chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Oregon Health and Sciences University for the past nine years, has joined the staff of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health as its new senior vice president for medical affairs.

Rosenfeld, who also is physician-in-chief of Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, will oversee and direct a seven-year, $230 million grant made to the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health by the separate David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The children’s health foundation will in turn use the funds to advance patient and family care at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and the pediatric research and training programs of the Stanford University School of Medicine.

“The Packard grant is without precedent in the history of pediatrics,” said Rosenfeld. “It will provide the opportunity for Packard Children’s Hospital to develop as one of the truly outstanding pediatric facilities in the world, both clinically and academically.”

Rosenfeld succeeds Richard E. Behrman, M.D., who has served as senior vice president for medical affairs at the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health since 2000. Behrman, who helped establish the five-year-old foundation, is now the executive chair of the Pediatric Education Steering Committee of the Federation of Pediatric Organizations, which includes the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Pediatric Society.

“Dr. Behrman set the bar very high for his successor,” said Stephen Peeps, president and CEO of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. “We are delighted that, in Ron Rosenfeld, we have attracted a luminary in his own right, who will raise the bar to a whole new level of excellence. Children near and far will be the beneficiaries.”

A professor of cell and developmental biology, Rosenfeld is an internationally renowned authority on the endocrine basis of growth and development. He has been at the forefront of understanding the biology of growth hormones and growth factors for more than 25 years. Rosenfeld has received numerous awards, including a Mellon Foundation Fellowship, the Basil O’Connor Award from the March of Dimes, and an NIH Career Development Award. He has written more than 500 publications and edited eight books. He earned a B.A., with highest honors, from Columbia University in 1968, and his medical degree with honors from Stanford University in 1973.

Rosenfeld continued his postgraduate work at Stanford, ultimately joining its faculty and becoming a professor of pediatrics in 1989.

He will join the foundation officially on December 30.

The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health was established in 1996 as an independent public charity to promote and protect the health of children. The foundation raises funds for, and awards grants to, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and the pediatric programs at the Stanford School of Medicine. The foundation also awards grants to community organizations that promote the health and well-being of children in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and it disseminates information on children’s health issues.