{"id":29984,"date":"2024-10-30T10:55:56","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T10:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/?p=29984"},"modified":"2026-01-06T16:28:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T16:28:58","slug":"national-academy-of-medicine-inducts-kim-anderson-phd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/2024\/10\/30\/national-academy-of-medicine-inducts-kim-anderson-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"National Academy of Medicine Inducts Kim Anderson, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Two decades ago, as a post-doc at University of California-Irvine, FES Center investigator Kim Anderson, PhD, transformed the way researchers approached spinal cord injury (SCI) research.<\/p>\n

At that time, most SCI research focused on thoracic injuries and evaluating walking. But Anderson, who has a spinal cord injury herself, asserted that there were many other problems important to people with spinal cord injuries, such as regaining upper extremity function, bladder, bowel, and sexual function.<\/p>\n

It was an insight that would make Anderson a pioneer in SCI research.<\/p>\n

This October, Anderson was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine<\/a> (NAM), one of the highest honors in health and medicine, adding to her distinctions as a researcher and advocate for SCI research.<\/p>\n

Anderson is also Director of the Northeast Ohio Regional Spinal Cord Injury System (NORSCIS) based at the MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute and operated with Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). And, she is a professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at MetroHealth and the CWRU School of Medicine, and at MetroHealth\u2019s Center for Rehabilitation Research.<\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s path to transform SCI research and rehabilitation began in 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized researchers were missing out on a lot of areas of research that were important to people with spinal cord injury,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

When a colleague confided he wouldn\u2019t change his research priorities until there was data indicating he should, \u201cI took it upon myself to get that data,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s work culminated in a critical study published in the Journal of Neurotrauma<\/em> titled, \u201cTargeting recovery: priorities of the spinal cord-injured population.\u201d The 2004 article detailed Anderson\u2019s study of close to 700 people with SCI and found that regaining arm and hand function was most important to quadriplegics, while regaining sexual function was the highest priority for paraplegics, and improving bladder and bowel function was of shared importance to both groups.<\/p>\n

Though her colleagues were surprised, \u201cthey embraced it and started changing what they were doing,\u201d Anderson shares.<\/p>\n

The groundbreaking work solidified Anderson\u2019s commitment to ensure that lived experience always guides SCI research priorities. And this dedication is among the reasons she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2023. Throughout her career, Anderson has focused on obtaining the perspective of people living with SCI on various aspects of research.<\/p>\n

This fall, Anderson was officially inducted into the NAM, one of 100 members in the class of 2023, and bringing NAM membership to more than 2,400 individuals.<\/p>\n

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Founded in 1970 as the Institute of Medicine (IOM), NAM is one of three academies that make up the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in the United States. NAM is charged with advising the US government on national health policies, and election to NAM recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.<\/p>\n

As a member of the class of 2023, Anderson was involved in 2024 nominations. She was also invited to participate in an interest group working to establishing function as a third indicator of health along with morbidity and mortality.\u00a0 And she was asked to present on how to include lived experience when developing function-focused outcome measures.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly humbling and a bit surreal to be considered in that caliber of people,\u201d Anderson says of her NAM election. \u201cEspecially when you consider that some NAM members authored the textbooks I learned from in grad school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson is part of a small contingent of Cleveland researchers and clinicians who have been elected members to a national academy.<\/p>\n

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The group includes Anderson\u2019s colleagues John Chae, MD, MetroHealth\u2019s Senior Vice President and Chief Academic Officer, a physiatrist and member of NAM; and biomedical engineer Hunter Peckham, PhD, co-director of the MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute and Founder of the Institute for Functional Restoration at CWRU, who is a member of NAE. Both Chae and Peckham traveled to Washington for Anderson\u2019s induction.<\/p>\n

Anderson says the lifelong honor could afford her the opportunity to interact on a global scale when it comes to advancing SCI research and rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe all researchers have a responsibility to interact with the individuals that are living with the disease or condition they are studying,\u201d Anderson says, \u201cas they\u2019re the experts in that lived experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””] Two decades ago, as a post-doc at University of California-Irvine, FES Center investigator Kim Anderson, PhD, transformed the way researchers approached spinal cord injury (SCI) research. At that time, most SCI research focused on thoracic injuries and evaluating walking. But Anderson, who has a spinal cord injury herself, asserted that there were many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":29985,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards","category-people"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29986,"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29984\/revisions\/29986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fescenter.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}