Suzanne P. Starling MD

Dr. Suzanne Starling, an expert in child abuse pediatrics, is the medical director and associate center director at the Chadwick Center for Children & Families at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego. She is also a clinical professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Dr. Starling comes to Rady Children's from Norfolk, Va., where she served as the medical director of the Child Abuse Program at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, as well as director of the Child Abuse Pediatrics Fellowship Program and chief of the Division of Child Abuse Pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Previously, she served as director of the Child Abuse & Neglect Program at Vanderbilt University. Her clinical practice is complemented by extensive research in the field of child abuse, which has been published in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Starling also edited a well-respected textbook in the field. She has given more than 350 lectures to medical, investigative and legal audiences, presenting at national and international conferences.

Dr. Starling's professional society memberships include the Ray E. Helfer Society, the international professional organization for child abuse physicians; the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children; and the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse & Neglect. She is a longstanding member of the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, where she also has served as chair of the Section on Child Abuse and Neglect. She was a founding member of the American Board of Pediatrics subboard on child abuse pediatrics and served as its second chairperson. Among her honors and awards, she received the Liberty Bell Award from the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Association, given to a non-legal professional whose work has strengthened the effectiveness of the justice system; was named an "Outstanding Professional" by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children; and was selected as a "Hometown Hero" for excellence in child abuse prevention and treatment by the Stihl Corporation and the Norfolk Tides baseball team.