James Paul Nataro, MD
Pediatric Infectious Diseases
Additional Locations
Bio & Overview
Dr. James Nataro came to UVA in September 2010, and he currently serves as the physician in chief for UVA Children's and the chair of the Department of Pediatrics. He is an attending physician in inpatient general pediatrics, and until recently, pediatric infectious diseases. His research focuses on intestinal health, especially diseases of developing countries. He's also involved in teaching upcoming healthcare professionals.
With everything that he does, Dr. Nataro’s ultimate goal is to improve the health of children.
Academic Information
- Department
- Pediatrics
- Academic Role
- Professor
- Division
- Pediatric Infectious Diseases
- Research Interests
- Enteric Infections Global Health
- Gender
- Male
- Languages
- English
- Age Groups Seen
- Infants (0-2)
Children (2-12)
Adolescents (12-21)
- Primary Education
- University of Maryland School of Medicine
- Residency
- Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
- Fellowships
- Johns Hopkins Hospital
- Certification
- American Board of Pediatrics (Pediatric Infectious Diseases)
- Appointment
- Chair - Division Chief of Pediatric Infectious Disease, Physician in Chief - UVA Children's
Highlights
Dr. James Nataro profile video
[MUSIC PLAYING] JAMES NATARO: My name is Jim Nataro, and I am the physician-in-chief of the UVA Children's Hospital. Been interested in medicine as long as I can remember. My father is a physician. My mother's a nurse. My grandfather is a physician, and I have four uncles who are physicians. And so for me, it seemed like the family profession. But then once I had my first pediatric experience while in medical school, I completely fell in love with it, and I couldn't imagine doing anything else. My training is in infectious diseases, but my particular interest is the really complex chronic patient, chronic conditions in the American population that some people believe may have an infectious component. My other great interest is population health and, in particular, vaccines, the role of vaccines in keeping people healthy, whether people should be vaccinated or not, and helping families make very difficult decisions about whether or not to get their kids vaccinated. Summer of 2014, we opened the Battle Building here on the grounds of UVA. The vision that we are fulfilling with that building is that we are focused on the children with complex care needs. So often a child who has a serious or a chronic health condition will need to see multiple different providers in different subspecialties and often across different, shall we say, domains of medicine, a surgeon and a pediatrician and a therapist, rehabilitation, et cetera. And coordinating all of those therapies for a child can be very, very challenging. So we have designed and we have operationalized this building in order to realize the best possible coordination of care. When we pediatricians take care of children, we realize that we are taking care of somebody for the rest of their lives. The impact we have may be for decades, sometimes generations. And that's an empowering kind of an experience, to know that you can make a difference in somebody for 50, 60, 70, 80 or more years.