The medical school’s new chief of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology has a passion for providing high quality and efficient medical care for her patients and teaching children in the community about living a healthy lifestyle.
Dr. Berrin Ergun-Longmire will further develop WMed Health’s Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes practice in the Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. She will conduct research in pediatric endocrinology and will lead WMed Health’s pediatric endocrinology team.
Dr. Ergun-Longmire said she aims to work with the dedicated pediatric endocrinology team to bring excellence to patient care, resident education and research to the medical school.
“It’s our goal to provide patient and family-centered care in Kalamazoo at WMed Health in collaboration with Bronson Children’s Hospital,” Dr. Ergun-Longmire said.
The subspecialty involves not only children but also families, school staff and other medical teams. “My goal is to streamline the medical care for our children and the families,” Dr. Ergun-Longmire said.
Dr. Ergun-Longmire plans to develop a multidisciplinary clinic where patients will be seen by several subspecialists and their whole medical team including nutritionists, and social workers, in one visit instead of traveling multiple times to complete their care.
In the midst of obesity epidemic in our nation, she said she plans to reach out to key community leaders to talk how to teach children and families to live a healthy lifestyle, in order to prevent obesity related complications including Type 2 Diabetes.
“What resources are we providing them, how can we make it easy to live a healthy lifestyle instead of saying to diet?” Dr. Ergun-Longmire said.
Dr. Ergun-Longmire has a long worked to bring education and accessibility of healthcare to her patients.
Prior to coming to the medical school, Dr. Ergun-Longmire founded and served as the chief of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at The Studer Family Children’s Hospital at Sacred Heart, which is affiliated with the University of Florida. She has been the director of the Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology at Akron Children’s Hospital. She has served as the chief of Pediatric Endocrinology at the College of Medicine and Life Sciences at the University of Toledo and at the Herman and Walter Samuelson Children’s Hospital at Sinai in Baltimore.
Dr. Ergun-Longmire earned her medical degree from Istanbul University. She completed residency training in internal medicine and obstetrics and gynecology in Turkey, then completed residency training in pediatrics at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, New Jersey.
Dr. Ergun-Longmire completed a research fellowship at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Fertility and a pediatric endocrinology fellowship at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical School. She is board certified in Pediatric Endocrinology by the American Board of Pediatrics.
Dr. Ergun-Longmire will see patients at WMed Health’s Oakland Drive campus in Kalamazoo and Mall Drive campus in Portage.