Vanderbilt appoints director of pediatric stem cell transplant program

Carrie Kitko, MD, has been named associate professor of pediatrics and director of the pediatric stem cell transplant program within the division of hematology/oncology at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.

Kitko previously served as assistant professor of the blood and marrow transplantation program in the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases at University of Michigan School of Medicine.

“We are thrilled to have Dr. Kitko join our faculty and lead our stem cell transplant program,” Debra Friedman, MD, director of pediatric hematology/oncology, associate professor of pediatrics and E. Bronson Ingram professor of pediatric oncology at Vanderbilt, said in a press release. “She is a wonderful, experienced clinician who will provide state-of-the-art, compassionate care to our patients and families. She will bring new and innovative treatments and clinical trials, many of which will be unique in our region.”

Kitko, an internationally recognized expert in graft-versus-host disease, began seeing patients in June.

“I look forward to building a new chapter in Vanderbilt’s pediatric stem cell program, where we focus on improving outcomes for pediatric patients undergoing transplant,” Kitko said in the press release. “It is a wonderful opportunity for me to lead the program. Vanderbilt is an outstanding place to work, where people from multiple disciplines come together and find new ways of studying patients’ disease processes, finding new treatments and there is a community of like-minded physicians.”