Dr. Karen Farst has been promoted to senior vice president and chief medical officer of Arkansas Children’s, the pediatric care system announced.
Farst will move into the role over the course of the hospital’s fiscal year to ensure a smooth transition, Arkansas Children’s said in a news release.
Farst leads the child maltreatment program at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, where she also serves as chief of medical staff. She was the first physician to become board-certified in child abuse pediatrics in the state.
Farst is also a professor of pediatrics and section chief of children at risk in the UAMS College of Medicine. She served two terms on the child abuse sub-board of the American Board of Pediatrics.
“Dr. Farst is exceptional at building partnerships and adept at navigating some of the most challenging systems to ensure children’s safety and well-being,” Dr. Rick Barr, executive vice president and chief clinical officer of Arkansas Children’s, said in the release. “For the past 20 years, she has been the state’s leading advocate for the most vulnerable children, reducing trauma after trauma by building collaborations and partnerships that shine a light on the very dark subject of child abuse and neglect.”
Farst attended medical school at Texas Tech before completing her medicine-pediatric residency and chief pediatric residency at UAMS and Arkansas Children’s.
Following three years of primary care practice in northwest Arkansas, she completed her child abuse fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s before returning to the faculty at UAMS and Arkansas Children’s.
She completed her master’s in public health at the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health.
Sign up for Daily E-news
