For more than 25 years, Dr. Quinlan has worked to improve the health and safety of children through his education of everyone from medical students to engineers, his advocacy on microwave safety, car passenger safety, and gun safety and his determination to make the world safer for children. Dr. Quinlan, MD, MPH is an academic general pediatrician, researcher and advocate who has recently become the Pediatric Medical Advisor to the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. Prior to this role, he was Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Division of General Pediatrics at Rush University Medical Center. He served as the Principal Investigator for the CDC-funded Sudden Unexpected Infant Death-Case Registry for Cook County, IL and was the prior Chair of the AAP Council on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention.
Dr. Quinlan graduated from Lake Forest University with a BS in Chemistry, and received his MD from Loyola’s Stritch School of Medicine, and then completed his pediatric residency at Wyler Children’s Hospital at the University of Chicago. He then received his Masters in Public Health in epidemiology and biostatistics from the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago with his MPH Essay being “Motor Vehicle-Related Injuries Among American Indian and Alaska Natives” in 1996—already involved in injury research! Between 1997 and 1999 Kyran served as the Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the CDC in Atlanta. Clearly, early in his career, Kyran was focused on injury and injury prevention topics.
Dr. Quinlan is a leader in all topics pediatric injury prevention. He has examined pediatric injury epidemiology, built playgrounds and worked with communities to prevent pediatric pedestrian injury in Chicago, worked on programs to prevent sudden unexpected infant death, and strives to prevent pediatric burns through safer microwaves. Dr. Quinlan has been awarded multiple honors from the CDC for his work in the epidemiology of pedestrian injuries in various settings including the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control Directors Award “For working effectively with the U.S. Department of Transportation and its National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to enhance research on motor vehicle injuries and to develop programs to prevent them." In 2022, Kyran received the American Burn Association “Burn Prevention Award”, which is a national award annually for his extensive work to make microwave oven doors child resistant. Kyran worked for over fifteen years with engineers, injury prevention specialists, and legislators to make all microwaves safe for children. He steps outside the traditional walls of medical research to promote child safety.
Kyran has been educating trainees and faculty on pediatric injury prevention through his innovative practices. Holding a car seat fitting for pediatric residents about to graduate from their program is one example. He arranged for certified car seat technicians to have these residents how to install seats and place baby dolls into them appropriately. He has lectured at multiple academic centers regarding pedestrian safety and participated in a quality improvement collaborative to increase safe sleep for infants amongst eight community sites around the nation. Kyran has mentored many trainees, fellows, and faculty in research practices and injury prevention strategies.
We are honored to award Dr. Kyran Quinlan the 2023 Pioneer Award for his amazing accomplishments in injury prevention for children!
###
