Christopher J. Russell, MD, MS, is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Hospital Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. As a pediatric hospitalist, he has clinical expertise in the acute medical management and coordination of care for children with medical complexity. The overall objective of his current work is to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of bacterial respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia, in children with complex medical conditions.

Despite being the most common potentially preventable condition for which pediatric patients with tracheostomy are hospitalized, there is little clinical research surrounding the prevention and management of respiratory infections in this population. Dr. Russell is the Principal Investigator for a multicenter, prospective observational cohort study to evaluate how clinicians use clinical information to diagnose and treat suspected bacterial tracheostomy-associated infections and to identify factors associated with antibiotic overuse in this population. He hopes to develop evidence-based guidelines for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of bacterial respiratory tract infections in this vulnerable population. Dr. Russell’s research is currently supported by the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the Gerber Foundation.