For 30 years, Dr. Kevin Ault has amassed a wealth of experience as an obstetrician and gynecologist, has taught medical students and residents and has become a leader in academic medicine.
He is an expert on how infectious diseases affect women and newborns and a leader in the United States on vaccinations, acting on a committee that influenced vaccination decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic that affected millions of Americans.
Now, Dr. Ault brings his experience to the medical school, taking the helm of WMed’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He joins Brian Nielsen, MD, who started in June as the Residency Program Director for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Charita Roque, MD, who started as an assistant professor in the department on September 6.
“This is a real opportunity for people who are interested in spending time with learners to get in on the ground floor and to make things the way they want them,” Dr. Ault said of the residency, which started in 2018 and this year saw its first class of four residents graduate. “A lot of OB/GYN residencies have been around since the middle of the last century, and that’s not the case for this residency.”
Dr. Ault comes to WMed from the University of Kansas School of Medicine, where he spent nearly seven years as a professor and the division director in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and a year as the director of Clinical and Translational Research in that department. He has spent three decades teaching learners at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health and the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.
An opportunity to affect community health, particularly maternal morbidity and mortality, drew Dr. Ault to WMed, he said.
“Nationally, health disparities between communities of color and the rest of us have been dramatic,” Dr. Ault said. “I sense that there’s a real commitment with the dean and with the financial backing of the donors in the community that Kalamazoo is going to do something about it and be a model for other cities big and small around the United States.”
The Indiana native started his medical career in 1988, having graduated from the Indiana University School of Medicine. He completed his residency training at the Ohio State University in 1992 and completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Kansas Medical Center in 1994.
Dr. Ault has extensive clinical research experience in women’s health and infectious diseases, and he has become an expert on how infectious diseases affect women and newborns, particularly the human papillomavirus and hepatitis B.
In 2018, he was appointed to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) as one of 15 voting members studying infectious diseases and is responsible for making vaccination recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In this capacity, he was on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic when the committee drew up vaccine policy for the country. He has chaired working groups on the committee looking at influenza and hepatitis and also has participated in the working group looking at the human papillomavirus vaccine. At the height of the pandemic, up to 40,000 people listened to the ACIP debate COVID-19 vaccine recommendations over Zoom meetings, Dr. Ault said.
In addition, Dr. Ault has served on the CDC Advisory Committee for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, which expanded the guidelines for Hepatitis C virus screening of women of childbearing age to prevent unborn children from acquiring an infection.
Dr. Ault describes his HPV and hepatitis expertise as “being at the right place at the right time” as a medical student and a resident and having great mentors. He trained alongside Dr. Robert Munsick, who was his clerkship director at Indiana University School of Medicine, who he credits with sparking his interest in obstetrics and gynecology. Dr. Steven Gabbe, program director and chair of the obstetrics and gynecology program at The Ohio State University when Dr. Ault was a resident, became an expert on high-risk pregnancies and wrote more than a dozen books. He went on to serve as CEO of The Ohio State University Medical Center until 2015.
"Even though these mentors were men, they really cared about women and saw the inequities in women’s health care,” Dr. Ault said. “Before it ever made the front page of the New York Times, they were talking about it. The people that I grew up around really cared deeply about the state of women’s health care locally and in the country and reflected that by the way they took care of patients.”
Looking ahead, Dr. Ault said he will spend his first few weeks at WMed meeting with leaders and formulating goals for the department. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists predicts a “serious workforce shortage” by 2030, as older providers retire.
“There’s a big shortage and there’s wonderful opportunities to train doctors in Kalamazoo,” Dr. Ault said.
Dr. Ault and his wife, Teri, have two grown daughters, and Teri works as a women’s health nurse. Their family enjoys watching theater, trying new foods, and entertaining others at their home.