ASCI / Emerging-Generation Awards, 2024

Kevin Seitz, MD, MSc is a post-doctoral research fellow in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. After studying American history in college, he worked with a non-profit organization to improve outcomes for patients with Medicaid, where he was inspired by the need to integrate quantitative data with perspectives of bedside clinicians in order to improve care. He then completed his medical degree and a Master's in Clinical Research from Emory University in Atlanta before internal medicine residency at the University of Washington and chief residency in quality and safety at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. During that time, he found he was passionate about working in the ICU with critically ill adults and multi-disciplinary teams, both in resuscitation and in care at the end of life. He moved to Vanderbilt for Pulmonary and Critical Care fellowship and joined the research group of Todd Rice, MD, MSc, Matthew Semler, MD, MSc, and Jonathan Casey, MD, MSc. Their group studies common decisions faced by intensivists every day that lack high-quality evidence but may have serious consequences for patients. Emerging pragmatic methods allow for rigorous, prospective, randomized trials of these decisions that can efficiently answer important research questions and, in so doing, improve care for millions of critically ill adults each year. Dr. Seitz is pursuing a career as a physician-scientist with a clinical research focus on pragmatic randomized trials of complex interventions in the ICU. His unique interest in this group is in how methodology from implementation science can be used in pragmatic trial design to embed trial procedures into routine care more effectively in a site-specific manner. Outside of work in Nashville, he enjoys spending time with family and friends outdoors, running along the Cumberland River, and finding any excuse he can to visit a bookstore.