William E. Truog, MD was raised in Kansas City, Missouri and graduated from the public school system there. After graduating cum laude from Carleton College in Minnesota, he attended and graduated from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1973. Dr. Truog undertook his training in Pediatrics and in the subspecialty of Neonatology at the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center and the University of Washington School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics in Seattle, Washington.
Following the completion of his fellowship, Dr. Truog joined the faculty there as an Assistant Professor in 1978, and ascended the ranks of Associate Professor, 1982, becoming full professor in 1987. During his tenure in Seattle, Dr. Truog received several NIH grants including a Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Research Career Development Award. Dr. Truog pursued his interest in the study of developmental lung biology, with a particular emphasis on the mechanisms by which oxygen is taken up and carbon dioxide eliminated across the air-blood barrier in the lungs. Dr. Truog also served as director of the Intensive Care Nursery at the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center from 1982 – 1991.
In 1993, Dr. Truog was recruited “back home” to Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics/University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Medicine where he was Children’s Mercy Hospital’s first Physician Scientist. Dr. Truog has continued his research activities in Kansas City funded by NIH support, with a growing emphasis on development of the pulmonary vascular bed and new therapies of pulmonary disorders. Dr. Truog was awarded the Kreamer Pediatric Research Excellence Award in 1999, and in 2001 he was named the Sosland Family Endowed Chair in Neonatal Research at Children’s Mercy Hospital.
Dr. Truog is the author or coauthor of over 90 peer-reviewed publications, 40 book chapters, and has co-authored one handbook in Neonatal Medicine. In addition to serving as Professor of Pediatrics at UMKC School of Medicine, and a member of the newly created Institute of Maternal-Fetal Biology at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, Dr. Truog has served for the last 10 years as Director of the Neonatology Training Program at Children’s Mercy Hospital, one of 100 such programs in the United States. In the role he has helped shape the career paths of 15 individuals so far. For the last three years, Dr. Truog has served as the chairman of the National Organization of Neonatal-Perinatal Training Program Directors. His biography also appears in Who’s Who in America (2003 edition).
Dr. Truog is married to Jill Jacobson, MD. She is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, UMKC School of Medicine, and a staff Pediatric Endocrinologist at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics. They have one son, William, now four years old.
©
The University of Kansas Medical Center