Spotlight
Dr. Roberta Williams
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Roberta Williams, MD, former pediatric cardiologist and Vice President for Pediatrics and Academic Affairs at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
What makes her an “Audrey” Over an extraordinary career spanning five decades, Dr. Williams has been, and continues to be, a persistent and passionate champion for improvement in the systems of care for patients with chronic disease originating in childhood.
Dr. Williams attended college and medical school before Title IX passed in 1972. When she finished high school in North Carolina in 1959, it had been her dream to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Women, however, could not apply for admission to UNC-Chap Hill as freshmen. As a result, she went to Duke University, which did accept women as freshmen.
As a college student, Dr. Williams supported herself working at the University of North Carolina measuring heart sounds, so she was offered the opportunity to create the first cardiac ultrasound laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital, one of the first in the nation. The field of cardiac ultrasound was just emerging, giving physicians a chance to view intricate heart defects prior to going into surgery. In addition, surgeons were having the first significant successes with open heart surgery in infants. With her front-row seat, she became a pioneer in the field of echocardiography, which visualizes the arteries and chambers of the heart. Beginning in the early 1970s, she developed the initial clinical correlations that served as the basis for noninvasive diagnosis of a wide range of cardiac anomalies. Later, she became the first director of the pediatric cardiothoracic intensive care unit at Boston Children’s, while still developing the cardiac ultrasound lab. The development of improved non-invasive imaging was useful for the development of neonatal heart surgery, which relied on correct preoperative diagnosis and the ability to diagnose the cause of postoperative problems.
She later served as Chief of Pediatric Cardiology at UCLA for 12 years and then accepted the position of Chairman of Pediatrics at UNC because of her desire to improve resources for pediatric patients and the providers who care for them. When approached to consider the position of Vice President for Pediatrics and Academic Affairs at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Chair of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, she recognized the opportunity provided by a large, multidisciplinary children’s hospital to create coordinated and uninterrupted management of chronic disease from fetal life to young adulthood. From the start of her tenure at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Dr. Williams has been instrumental in developing guidelines for two vulnerable periods when care is “handed off:” fetal-neonatal and adolescence-young adult. She headed up the launch of the maternal/fetal medicine program at USC that has provided prenatal diagnosis and planning for fetuses with complex and often multisystem defects. The program provides a platform for all providers to coordinate plans for the best outcome.
With higher survival rates, today more adults than children have congenital heart disease. Their need for continuing care has been met with a generation of adult cardiologists who don’t understand congenital heart disease and its warning signs because they have had little or no experience in this and other rare childhood diseases. As a result, many young adults who “age out” of pediatrics have difficulty finding trained adult medicine practitioners and do not receive appropriate care. During her residency and cardiology fellowship training, Dr. Williams cared for adolescents and adults with congenital heart disease. She went on to chair the first national consensus conference on development of the cardiology workforce to support adult congenital heart disease, co-wrote the initial guidelines for treatment of those adults, helped to establish joint American Board of Pediatrics and American Board of Internal Medicine certification for the new subspecialty, and was on the writing group for the first certifying exam.
Over the past 10 years she has championed the development of a unique CHLA-wide program to prepare youth for successful transition to adult care and to create a navigation hub within the Center for Healthy Adolescent Transition (CHAT) to assist patients and their families in a warm hand-off to their adult providers.
Dr. Williams has dedicated her career to creating a stronger continuum of care, including more congenital heart disease expertise in the adult medical community, and has collaborated with the American College of Cardiology and colleagues around the world to do so.
Notable achievements:
Lifetime Achievement Award, American Society of Echocardiograph
Gifted Teacher Award, American College of Cardiology, 2002
Women in Cardiology Mentor Award, American Heart Association, 2003
Master of the American Heart Association, 2005
Master of the American College of Cardiology, 2006
Founder’s Award, Cardiology Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics, 2010
Distinguished Medical Alumnus, University of North Carolina, 2012
Presidential Medallion, University of Southern California
Dr. Audrey Evans inspires me because she acted fearlessly on her bold ideas.
I want my legacy to be young leaders who will continue to advance the concept of lifelong care for chronic diseases originating in childhood and to fight for the resources to care for children with complex diseases.