Pulmonary & Respiratory Medicine

Lawrence M Rhein

Biography

 I am board-certified in Pediatrics, Neonatology, and Pediatric Pulmonology. neonatologist by training.  I completed my residency at the Boston Combined Residency in Pediatrics in 1999, and was Chief Resident at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2000.  I completed dual fellowships in the Harvard Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship Program and Pediatric Pulmonology at Children’s Hospital Boston (CHB) in 2004.

Research Interest

 The goals of my research are to understand the optimal oxygen status of fragile infants with lung disease, balancing the risks of potentially unnecessary exposure to oxygen with the risks of untreated hypoxia.    I am using clinical and translational studies to help answer these questions.  I utilize long-term recorded oximetry to correlate with biomarkers, and with later outcomes to identify which desaturations might require intervention and which can be safely ignored.   In addition to my work on interpretation of oxygen saturation patterns, I have developed a research portfolio studying the care of children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia and follow-up of newborns with other lung diseases. I published results of my clinic database describing under-recognized prevalence of pulmonary hypertension in premature infants, a paper which has changed screening patterns.  Recognizing the lack of information available to patients who fail their car-seat challenge, I founded a clinical program to assist these families.  I developed a survey to analyze patterns of care by primary care pediatricians for these patients; a manuscript based on these findings has been published, and a second manuscript describing predictors of failure of the car seat challenge, based on my clinical experience, has also already been published.