Division of Pediatric Urology Expands with New Faculty Member

In September, the Division of Pediatric Urology at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh welcomed its newest faculty member, Janelle Fox, MD, FACS, CSSGB. Dr. Fox comes to UPMC Children’s after serving for six years as a pediatric urologist in the United States Navy, where she treated patients at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (Portsmouth, Virginia), Naval Medical Center Camp LeJeune (Jacksonville, North Carolina), and Joint Base Langley-Eustis (Newport News, Virginia). During her military practice, Dr. Fox was Assistant Department Head, Chair of Robotic Surgery, and Chair of the Performance Improvement Committee.

Dr. Fox earned her medical degree from the University of California San Diego and then completed her residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, followed by fellowship training at UPMC Children’s. Dr. Fox also is completing a master’s degree in Healthcare Quality and Safety Management from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition to her medical and health care training, Dr. Fox is a Six Sigma Green Belt with plans to pursue Six Sigma Black Belt certification while working on quality improvement projects with UPMC Children’s and the Division of Pediatric of Urology.

“Having trained at UPMC Children’s for my fellowship, I knew the system well and had very positive learning experiences during my two years in fellowship. The mentorship that I experienced with Division faculty here at UPMC Children’s, and more broadly in the adult urology program led by Dr. Joel Nelson, was so beneficial to my early career,” says Dr. Fox. Clinical, Education, and Research Interests

Dr. Fox has diverse interests and long-term plans now that she has arrived at UPMC Children’s. Academic and resident mentorship is high on the list of priorities, specifically helping Urology trainees with research opportunities, authorship, and opportunities to present at national and regional conferences. Dr. Fox also hopes to participate in ongoing point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) comparative effectiveness research from what is one of the largest pediatric urology series in the nation.

Quality improvement is another major area of interest for Dr. Fox, and she hopes to take part in both division-level and system-wide quality improvement and patient safety efforts where she can leverage her expertise and training in quality improvement to further improve surgical outcomes, safety, and quality.

Additionally, Dr. Fox will be involved in developing telemedicine initiatives for the Division in hopes of enhancing access to and experience of care for patients in distant locations who require subspecialty pediatric urologic care. She has prior experience with both asynchronous and synchronous telehealth consultation in the military.

Clinically, Dr. Fox has particular expertise in diagnosing and treating refractory voiding dysfunction with concurrent behavioral diagnoses. She also brings with her the ability to offer tertiary therapy in the forms of Botox, parasacral TENS, percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation, and sacral neuromodulation.

Dr. Fox also has volunteered her expertise and time to teach fellow urology colleagues in other countries. In the past, she has volunteered for 12 humanitarian training missions to Senegal, Ghana, Liberia, Dominican Republic, and Trinidad. She will continue these efforts in the future as a part of the UPMC Children’s team.

“While these trips are about helping those in need, they also are about partnership to help our colleagues build their international programs by sharing knowledge, research, and contemporary surgical techniques. The goal of surgical humanitarian missions should be in supporting our colleagues and distant programs, such that our efforts will no longer be needed someday. It is challenging work, but one that has so many benefits both personally and professionally,” she says.