CHOC wants its patients and families to get to know its specialists. Today, meet Dr. Kenneth Kwon, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist. Dr. Kwon attended medical school at Columbia University. He completed an internship at UCLA, a pediatric residency at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University, and an emergency medicine residency at UC Irvine. He has been on staff at CHOC for eleven years and currently serves as director of pediatric emergency services and Chief of Staff elect at CHOC at Mission Hospital.
Q: What are your special clinical interests?
A: Pediatric trauma and injury prevention.
Q: What are your most common diagnoses?
A: Fractures, head injuries, lacerations, febrile illnesses, and abdominal pain.
Q: What would you most like community/referring providers to know about you/your division at CHOC?
A: We are a comprehensive general emergency department and trauma center with an emphasis on pediatric and family-centered care. We have pediatric-friendly facilities including a pediatric waiting area and Child Life services, and we have the resources of a children’s hospital in our building and at our fingertips.
Q: What inspires you most about the care being delivered here at CHOC?
A: CHOC is on the forefront regionally and nationally when it comes to patient safety and quality care, and that is not more evident than in the emergency department. I have worked in over ten emergency departments in my career, and I can safely say that the ED at CHOC at Mission is top-notch when it comes to timeliness and scope of care, facilities and staff.
Q: Why did you decide to become an emergency medicine physician?
A: During pediatric residency, I was particularly interested in high acuity care. I was deciding between neonatal/pediatric intensive care and pediatric emergency medicine. But I missed treating adults and the elderly, so I decided to pursue a second residency in emergency medicine. Now I get the best of both worlds, which is treating high acuity patients of all ages, with a particular emphasis on children.
Q: If you weren’t a physician, what would you be and why?
A: I would have become a music producer. I’ve always loved music and even dabbled as a disc jockey in college. I was never good at singing or dancing.
Q: What are your hobbies/interests outside of work?
A: Golf, family time, listening to obscure 80’s one-hit wonders, and sampling local microbrews.
Q: What was the funniest thing a patient told you?
A: An adage in pediatric emergency care is when a child comes in with a nosebleed, you don’t ask if he picks his nose, you ask him which finger he uses. When I asked this question to one of my pint-sized patients, he answered that he used all of them, and then proceeded to demonstrate by sticking each of his 10 fingers in his nose individually. It was priceless.
