Dr. Robert Obermeyer, chief of surgery at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters, ensures the hospital remains a top facility for pediatric surgical care while putting his engineering degree to use in developing new technology to improve clinical outcomes. Obermeyer has become an expert at chest wall reconstruction, giving presentations all over the world, according to his nomination.
He collaborated with surgeons from Switzerland and was instrumental in bringing to CHKD a non-surgical option, which uses a vacuum bell device, for select patients with pectus excavatum. The collaboration introduced vacuum bell therapy to the United States in 2012. The board-certified pediatric and general surgeon is the principal investigator on nine Institutional Review Board-approved research studies at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
He has completed engineering projects involving motion analysis of the chest wall of pectus patients and designed a surgical tool in collaboration with Old Dominion University’s college of engineering. Obermeyer is also an associate professor of surgery and pediatrics at EVMS. In addition to championing CHKD’s surgery program, he also helped the health system garner support for its mental health care efforts, including for a pediatric mental health hospital in the region.
Obermeyer shared career insights with Inside Business. Why do you do what you do? Like many of us in health care, I am driven by an innate desire to help others, particularly chil.
