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Leslie W. Kingslow, M.D.
Class of 1988
For Leslie Kingslow,MD, the path to medicine was steeped in family tradition. His grandfather graduated from Howard University with a pharmacy degree, and opened up his own pharmacy in Bluefield,W.Va. The oldest child in his family living in the south during the Jim Crow era, his grandfather then sent one of his younger brothers to pharmacy school, another to medical school and his younger sister to college, while obtaining a
medical degree himself from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee in 1915.
Dr. Kingslow’s father came to medicine indirectly, after several years of working for the U.S. Postal Service. Like his father before him, he graduated from Meharry Medical College and went on to form a successful practice as a general practitioner and civic leader in
northern New Jersey.
For the third generation of Kingslow doctors, the pathway to medicine was more direct. Dr. Kingslow, a pulmonary critical care physician with Washington Hospital Center, there was never a question of what he wanted to do. “In my high school yearbook,”Dr. Kingslow recalls, “there are notes from classmates that say, ‘I’m sure you’ll make a great doctor,’ so I guess I always knew.” Dr. Kingslow attended the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia as an undergraduate, and attended Howard University College of Medicine for medical school. Dr. Kingslow went on to do his residency in internal medicine at the Medical
College of Virginia, assuming he would join his father’s practice when he finished. But midway through his residency, his father was diagnosed with lung cancer.
That news in some ways altered Dr. Kingslow’s medical trajectory. He took six months off and went home to help his parents, and that time proved reflective for Dr. Kingslow. He realized that, as his father’s health waned, the idea of returning to New Jersey to join
ranks with his father in medical practice was not going to occur. Partly because of his father’s lung cancer as well as his experience with the pulmonologists at MCV, Dr. Kingslow began to think seriously about pulmonary medicine and critical care. He went on
to complete his fellowship in pulmonary and critical care at George Washington University. “It allows you to really focus on one organ system, while not ignoring all of the others.”
These days, Dr. Kingslow’s passion lies in pulmonary hypertension, which he says is a small niche within the pulmonary critical care world, but one in which he has a deep interest. He lectures frequently, both locally and around the country, on this and other subjects related to pulmonary disease.
“It offers a new challenge to those faced in a busy clinical practice, and I get the opportunity to travel the country, meet interesting people and discuss topics that are complex, not well understood, that I am passionate about. Such opportunities also allow me to help other
clinicians take better care of their patients and their communities.” Dr. Kingslow and his wife, Andr?a Williams Kingslow,MD, an obstetrician, have three sons, 16, 8 and 6. But Dr. Kingslow says that despite the family heritage on both sides—his wife’s father and
brother are also doctors—there is no pressure for a fourth generation of Kingslow men to pursue medicine.
“My oldest son has clearly stated he has no interest in medicine,” Dr. Kingslow laughs, noting he used to take his oldest son on rounds with him as a child, but that his son could never wait to get out of the hospital. These days, his son is gravitating toward pursuing business or law. “As long as my boys are making a meaningful contribution to the world and they are happy and responsible,” Dr. Kingslow reflects, “there’s no pressure.” When it comes to making a contribution to the world, Dr. Kingslow and his wife are leading by example. Dr. Kingslow sits on the board of Adventures in Health, Education and Agricultural Development, Inc. (AHEAD), a Rockville-based non-profit that works to mitigate extreme poverty, malnutrition and other health problems in distressed communities in East Africa. Last summer, his wife took
two of their sons to Tanzania to work for the organization and experience that culture.
The couple is in Tanzania this month, to work in medically challenged communities in Kisawere, Tanzania. This summer, Dr. Kingslow spent much of his spare time organizing two successful fundraisers in behalf of AHEAD, here in Washington and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Throughout the year, he has been collecting donated medical and surgical equipment for the communities that AHEAD works with. He has helped ship six cargo containers full of supplies to Tanzanian communities in need, on behalf of
AHEAD, since the summer of 2008.
Dr. Kingslow feels that “there are so many people in need, but, if we all do our part, however large or small that may be, we can dramatically improve the lives of many.”
—Maggie Master
Washington Hospital Center
Physician September/October 2009
vol. 15, no. 5, pg. 19
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