DETROIT--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dr. Sidhartha Tan has accepted an appointment as the division director of Neonatal and Perinatal Medicine at the Detroit Medical Center’s (DMC) Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Hutzel Women’s Hospital, professor of Pediatrics at the Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Helppie Professorship in Pediatric Urban Health.

A nationally recognized expert on cerebral palsy whose breakthrough research is aimed at eventually curing a disease that affects more than 500,000 United States children and their families said he “can’t wait to begin his new role as the division chief of Neonatal and Perinatal Medicine at the Detroit Medical Center.”

Sidhartha Tan, M.D., has more than 30 years experience as a hospital neonatologist and researcher in both cerebral palsy and ischemic hypoxic injury. Since 2009, he has served as a neonatologist at several hospitals in Chicago while also teaching pediatrics as a clinical professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine.
Dr. Tan’s new appointment took effect on Friday, July 1. He will replace the current division director of Neonatal and Perinatal Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Hutzel Women’s Hospital, Seetha Shankaran, M.D., a veteran researcher in hypoxia-related brain injury in newborns. Dr. Shankaran, professor of Pediatrics for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, will be stepping down as the division chief to focus on research that will continue to set the standard of care for neonates around the globe. For more than 40 years, Dr. Shankaran has been a major investigator in the Neonatal Research Network of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In her joint roles as Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at the Wayne State University School of Medicine and division director of Neonatal Perinatal Medicine at the DMC, she has taught hundreds of medical students how to care for both premature and full-term babies.

Her groundbreaking longitudinal research over many years on the use of “therapeutic whole-body cooling” for infants who were oxygen-starved at birth has been a major contribution to lowering death and disability rates among newborns. She will continue with the university and the Children’s Hospital of Michigan after July 1 to continue teaching and conducting research.

Describing Dr. Shankaran’s long record of outstanding service, Dr. Tan said, “I think she’s done a tremendous job as chief of the division. I look forward to building on her legacy, while maintaining the Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s outstanding reputation for good patient outcomes, effective clinical practices and leading-edge research.”

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