Michael Smiley, MD, has been named the new director of the Cystic Fibrosis Center at SSM Health Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, MO. The Center is nationally recognized for the care of pediatric patients with CF and for the extent of clinical research under way to advance CF therapeutic options.
Dr. Smiley, an associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, has been with SSM Health Cardinal Glennon since 2019, although he is no stranger to the hospital or Saint Louis University. He is a St. Louis native and earned his medical degree from Saint Louis University School of Medicine in 2005.
His medical training started thanks in part to a Health Professions Scholarship sponsored by the U.S. Navy. Following medical school, Dr. Smiley completed a residency in pediatrics at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Va., the nation’s oldest, continuously running hospital in the Navy medical system. He then served on active duty as a general pediatrician at the Naval Hospital in Rota, Spain. Following that deployment, he returned to the United States to complete a fellowship in pediatric pulmonary medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Still on active duty, Dr. Smiley subsequently served as director of the Cystic Fibrosis Center at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego from 2016 to 2019. While there, he established a comprehensive pediatric-to-adult care transition program for CF patients.
His interest in CF was initially sparked while on deployment to a remote location in the Philippines where he served as a Naval Flight Surgeon. A crewman became ill and later was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Over the years, he has cared for numerous newborn, child, and adult CF patients and focused clinical research efforts on the development of new therapeutics to treat CF. Since he arrived at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon, Dr. Smiley has been actively involved in developing a pediatric-to-adult care CF transition program as well as quality initiatives focused on educating adolescents on management of CF as they age into adulthood.
The Cystic Fibrosis Center at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital is a member of the Therapeutics Development Network (TDN) of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Several multicenter clinical trials are under way in the Center, with Dr. Smiley serving as principal or associate principal investigator on several studies.
For more information about the Center or to contact Dr. Smiley, call 314.268.6439.
