Davia Liba Loren, MD
On staff since August 2004
Academic Title: Associate Professor, Pediatrics
Research Center: Center for Clinical and Translational Research
"In this I believe....a society is defined by how it cares for its most vulnerable members. And among the most fragile are the youngest of our people, babies. Babies are our future, the embodiment of our dreams and the hopes for our future; for parents there is nothing more frightening than the realization that their baby is in peril. But such unfamiliar waters need not be traveled alone. I am passionate about helping parents navigate the fearful journey towards hopeful cure; and when cure is not possible, at least to healing. Seattle Children's is a place where we cure, heal and care; it is a true joy to serve among so many people who hold these values deep in their hearts. Really, magic does happen here."
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Dr. Loren is an associate professor and clinician-educator at all of our clinical practice sites where she teaches and supports medical students, residents and fellows. Her scholarly work intersects practical medical ethics, quality improvement and communication. She is a principle investigator and co-investigator on several projects studying communication of unanticipated outcomes and disclosure of medical errors.
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My wife and I had an unexpectedly difficult and traumatic birth experience that landed our newborn daughter in the UW NICU for about a day. The majority of the well-meaning staff there were clearly trying to provide support for some health issues that they were observing, although many of these issues were fairly normal in a baby that is born vaginal breech. The issue was that the staff had not seen them before, because vaginal breech births are now unheard of. Long story short, Dr. Loren was the only medical professional there that seemed curious about and wanted to learn from this experience. We found that immensely comforting. Totally lacking in the arrogance that I have seen and felt before in the medical system. Also, I found her demeanor to be extremely empathetic and soothing, which was so important at a time when I didn't know if my daughter would live. I am very grateful that she was around when all this was happening.
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Dr. Loren is one of the many fabulous doctors you will find at Children's Hospital, but for us she was a God send. My daughter was brought over to Children's from Overlake with Necrotizing Entrocolitis. She was premature and the prognosis at the time wasn't great. After a whirl wind of doctors that came and went Dr. Loren was present and calm, breaking down all the medical terminology to us. She, with and our Surgeon explained that they would need to do exploratory surgery and that there wasn't a great chance of survival. As a parent hearing that your tiny baby may not make it is quite possibly the most heartbreaking moment of your life. I was beside myself and asked Dr. Loren many questions. I was breaking down at that moment, distraught that my child may not make it. She told me that she was supposed to go because her shift was over but she would sit with my daughter during surgery and give her the support that I couldn't. She assured me she would let me know straight away if she had made it through the operation. That was 9 years ago and the kindness she showed to me, my husband and my daughter will sit with me forever. My daughter made it through the operation and other operations and today is a happy, thriving little girl. When I think back to horrible night, the gratitude I feel for Dr. Loren is overflowing. Those hours she sat with my daughter when she could have been home with her own family are priceless to me. To our family she is a Children's Hospital hero.
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Dr. Loren is a very knowledgeable, kind and helpful doctor, and an outstanding person. My son was born at the UWMC at 27 weeks gestation, and Dr. Loren was his doctor there. Dr. Loren was warm and calm with our son, and the same when dealing with us. After ten days at the UWMC we had to transfer to Children's (for neurosurgery) and Dr. Loren talked us through the process, called us the evening after we'd transferred, and visited us during our stay (10 days at UWMC, 65 at seattle Children's). Dr. Loren takes time with her patients, and she takes time with parents. When I first met her, I was drugged to the gills (morphine due to my c-section, magnesium and a slew of other drugs due to my other problems) and she was calm, patient, kind, and took lots of time to talk to me about my son's issues, treatments, and always made sure to answer any and all questions we had. On a more personal note, I remember laying in my bed (I was still a patient) and Dr. Loren was talking to me and my husband about the multitude of problems our three day old son was having, and she said (not exact words, because it's been almost six years) that our time in the hospital would be hard, but once we got our son home it would begin to get easier, and that over time we would be able to process our experience - she was the first medical person to say, in any way, that we might be taking our son home someday. And this idea that it was possible that our son could survive prematurity and blood problems and a bad brain bleed and go home was a breakthrough for me. I had been assuming he would not live, and that I probably wouldn't either. From there I started to recover, and I had hope. The day we were released from the hospital with our son we stopped by to see Dr. Loren. If you are in the heartbreaking position of having a baby under care in a hospital, you could not do better than to have Dr. Loren care for your child.
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Award Name Award Description Awarded By Award Date SEATTLE'S TOP DOCTOR - 2015 Seattle Met Magazine 2015 -
Other Publications
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Loren DJ, Seeram NP, Schulman RN, Holtzman DMMaternal dietary supplementation with pomegranate juice is neuroprotective in an animal model of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury.
15774834 Pediatric research, 2005 June : 57(6)858-64 -
Loren DJ, Seeram NP, Schulman RN, Holtzman DMMaternal dietary supplementation with pomegranate juice is neuroprotective in an animal model of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury.
15774834 Pediatric research, 2005 June : 858-64
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Overview
- Board Certification(s)
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Pediatrics
Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
- Medical/Professional School
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Rush Medical College at Rush University, Chicago, IL
- Residency
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University of CA at San Francisco School of Medici, San Francisco, CA
- Clinical Interests
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Managing the full spectrum of clinical challenges experienced by babies, especially antenatally diagnosed problems; working with families to create care planning "road-maps"; working with families who experienced "unexpected" events in the delivery of their infants
- Research Focus Area
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Translational Research
