Dr. Lea Neely Kirkham, MD

Dr. Kirkham grew up on a farm in Franklin, Kentucky with 4 siblings. After graduating from college at Western Kentucky University, she worked as a medical technologist at Vanderbilt Hospital in both the Immunology and Genetics Labs. With the encouragement of the physician who served as medical director of the Immunology and Genetics Labs, she took the medical entrance exam and began medical school at the University of Kentucky. It was during medical school that she found Pediatrics to be her favorite rotation. She also met her future husband, Mark Kirkham, who was also attending medical school at UK.

After graduation, she began her pediatric residency at Vanderbilt Hospital. She finished her last year of residency at Children’s Hospital here in Cincinnati where her husband was completing his Cardiology fellowship. She worked in the Emergency Room at Children’s for one year after her training before joining private practice at Northeast Pediatrics. She has two young children and …her husband also practices Cardiology here in Cincinnati.

She finds Pediatrics rewarding because of the ability to form close relationships with her patients and their families, and also for the challenge of keeping up with new treatments and the latest standard of care in Pediatrics.