Leading with Precision and Purpose

Joseph D. King, MD, did not begin his medical career with medicine in mind.

He was a chemistry major at the University of Virginia (UVA) and originally planned to teach high school and coach basketball. But a first-year volunteer assignment at UVA University Hospital — an assignment he chose because it was closest to his dorm — changed everything.

“I was just getting water [for patients],” King said. “But it got me to thinking I could be a help to the community and my fellow man.”

That simple act of service sparked a career that has taken King across the country and to a top job in a demanding specialty. Now, as the new chief of Pediatric Anesthesiology at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, he brings a wide-ranging background — clinical expertise, private practice experience and executive leadership training — to the Mid-South’s largest pediatric program.

King was born in Brooklyn, moved to Philadelphia when he was 8 or 9 years old and eventually matriculated at UVA. There, of course, he shifted to medicine after that mandatory first-year volunteer program at the hospital. Medical school was at Hahnemann Medical College (now Drexel University College of Medicine).

He completed his residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and a fellowship in Pediatric Anesthesiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. After 15 years in private practice in Dallas, he joined the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he served as vice chair of Pediatric Anesthesia.

It was during his residency at CHOP that he found an intense interest in pediatrics. That interest was fueled by the immense challenge that came with the care of children.

“I was taking care of really sick, critically ill, premature babies,” King said. “That’s what drew me to pediatrics. It moved faster than adult [medicine]. Adults have a lot more functional reserve than a two-pound baby. You have to be way more precise with what you're doing with kids.”

King was drawn to anesthesia by his original interest in chemistry but later interests in pharmacology and physiology.

“Anesthesia is really about maintaining homeostasis in the face of external assault by the surgeon,” he said. “How you do that? Pharmacology is the drugs that you would use to keep someone asleep, and they're vast and many. So that's why I gravitated to anesthesia.”

King also holds an MBA with a focus in health care management and completed executive leadership training at Harvard. But ask him about his new role at Le Bonheur, and he keeps it simple.

“I’m here to do whatever they need,” he said. “We are building our staff here and that’s top of mind. But, really, I’m here to be an asset to the hospital and the community.”

What attracted him to Le Bonheur, beyond the opportunity to lead, was the hospital itself: a freestanding children’s hospital with its own governance.

Now living in Memphis with his wife and children, King says he’s enjoying the “welcoming and warm” culture of the Mid-South. The family loves to travel and always seeks out museums and new cultures, from the Vatican and the British Museum and to the Louvre to the Modern Museum of Art.

Joseph D. King, MD

Education and Training

• Hehnemann University School of Medicine – Medical School
• University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine – Anesthesiology Residency
• University of Cincinnati College of Medicine – Pediatric Anesthesiology Fellowship
• University of Texas at Dallas – Master’s Degree in Health Care Management
• Harvard University – Leadership Development for Vice Chairs of Academic Centers

Board Certifications

• American Board of Anesthesiology

Society Membership

• American Society of Anesthesiologists
• Society of Pediatric Anesthesia
• American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine