Dr. Ken Schikler attended medical School at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and completed his pediatric residency and chief residency at Louisville Children’s Hospital. He complete a fellowship in Adolescent Medicine and became enthralled with the field of pediatric rheumatology and began reading, attending ACR meetings , CME meetings and spending vacation time at other centers with active rheumatology programs and shifted my academic and clinical career to Pediatric Rheumatology. He was named chief of Rheumatology, in addition to chief of Adolescent medicine at the Kosair Children’s Hospital (now Norton Children’s Hospital) 40 years ago, and now is exclusively chief of Rheumatology and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

Dr. Schikler has spent the bulk of his career focused on patient care and education of learners at the University of Louisville as well as for over a decade as a part time Professor at the University of Kentucky as an attending at their pediatric rheumatology clinic one day each month, as well as a visiting professor at other centers. He has been fortunate to have been able to collaborate in clinical research with colleagues in North America and Europe contributing to the identification of the gene mutation associated with Neonatal Onset Multisystem Inflammatory Disease, treatment of ANCA positive vasculitis in a pediatric population as well as a developing a better understanding of juvenile fibromyalgia.

Dr. Schikler has served on the ACR Annual Meeting Planning Committee, and reviewed abstracts for the Annual Meeting, and participated in the AMIGO mentoring program, and served as moderator at several sessions of ACR annual meetings and has been the recipient of the ACR Earl Brewer travel Award. He has served as Chair of the Rheumatology Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and chaired the CARRA Pain Committee. In 2017 he received the James T. Cassidy Award from the AAP recognizing excellence in teaching patient care and training of the next generation of Pediatric Rheumatologists and in 2022 was named a Master of the American College of Rheumatology.