UPMC Children’s Faculty Appointed to Leadership Roles

Carlton M. Bates, MD, pediatric nephrology Division Chief at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh was appointed to the role of Physician Scientist Development Lead on the Executive Committee of the Council for the Society for Pediatric Research (SPR). SPR is a leading national honorific organization devoted to creating a multidisciplinary network of diverse researchers to improve the health of children.

Dr. Bates has an extensive history with the Society for Pediatric Research, and a long-standing devotion to mentoring young and early-career physician-scientists. Dr. Bates was awarded membership into SPR in 2002, and in 2016, Dr. Bates was elected to the SPR Council for a three- year term. He has been a member of the Mentoring Work Group and the Finance Committee, and he has authored an SPR perspectives manuscript offering strategies for early-stage pediatric clinician-scientists (and their institutional leadership) to increase their chances of success in obtaining external research funding. In 2017, Dr. Bates started a national K grant writing course for SPR Junior Section members, which has had vastly increasing numbers of applicants each year.

Based on this work, he was awarded the Thomas A. Hazinski Distinguished Service Award from the SPR Council in 2019. In 2020, he was asked by SPR Council to become the first ever Lead for Pediatric Scientist Development. In this role, Dr. Bates is charged with expanding, developing, and implementing mentoring and career development programs for SPR Junior Section, often in collaboration with regional SPR organizations.

Of note, UPMC Children’s Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology chief, Linda M. McAllister-Lucas, MD, PhD, also was elected to the SPR Council in 2020. Catherine Forster, MD, MS, FAAP, from the Hospital Medicine Division of Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine also is an SPR Council member and a member of the Executive Committee.