In recent weeks, Beverly Grove-based Cedars-Sinai Health System has announced a pair of key hires for its pediatric care program, known as Guerin Children’s.
On July 17, Cedars-Sinai named Rangasamy Ramanathan as the new director of an expanded neonatology program at Guerin Children’s.
Just two days earlier, on July 15, Cedars-Sinai named Eugene Kim as Guerin Children’s new surgeon-in-chief and its second associate director of surgery.
Ramanathan is a renowned medical device inventor. He developed the widely used Ram Cannula, which delivers noninvasive ventilation to babies and children who need help breathing. To help save newborns in low- and middle-income countries, he also patented the low-cost Ramseeta ventilator, now pending regulatory approval.
Ramanathan joins Cedars-Sinai from the USC Keck School of Medicine, where he was a professor of pediatrics and director of neonatology. Previously, Ramanathan held leadership positions in neonatal and pediatric care at Los Angeles General Medical Center in Boyle Heights, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in East Hollywood, PIH Health Good Samaritan Hospital near downtown Los Angeles, and Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar.
The neonatology program at Cedars-Sinai began at the flagship campus in Beverly Grove, but has in recent years expanded to affiliated hospitals, including Huntington Health in Pasadena, Torrance Memorial Medical Center, and Providence-Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, among others.
“A lifelong interest in helping newborns, infants and children recover from breathing challenges – and thrive – has now led me to one of the most reputable institutions in the world,” Ramanathan said.
Kim, meanwhile, is a research expert in neuroblastoma, an aggressive childhood cancer that begins in nerve cells.
Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai in 2022, Kim was a professor of surgery and pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. He also was director of pediatric surgical oncology at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Kim succeeds Andrew Freedman as associate director of surgery. Freedman was the first associate director since the establishment of Guerin Children’s in late 2021. That followed a $100 million gift from the foundation led by local philanthropist and billionaire Vera Guerin, who was Cedars-Sinai’s board chair at the time.
“I look forward to continuing to grow our children’s surgery program and strengthening Guerin Children’s as a premier destination for pediatric care,” Kim said in the announcement.
