Kathryn Wells

Dr. Kathryn Wells is currently the Medical Director of the Denver Family Crisis Center where she serves as the child abuse and neglect consultant for Denver Health and Hospital Authority, Denver Department of Human Services, the Denver Police Department and the Denver District Attorney’s Office. She is also an attending physician with the Kempe Child Protection Team at the Children’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado, and has an academic appointment as an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

 Dr. Wells is originally from Montana where much of her family still resides. She received her B.A. in Biology and Psychology with Magna Cum Laude honors from Carroll College in Helena, Montana, and then attended medical school at Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, receiving her MD in 1993. She received her postgraduate training as a Pediatric Resident at Creighton – Nebraska Universities Health Foundation Joint Pediatric Residency Program also in Omaha.

After completion of her training, Dr. Wells joined the Family Medical Clinic in Caldwell, Idaho, where she practiced general pediatrics for five years. Dr. Wells then left Idaho to pursue Fellowship training in Denver at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, The Kempe Children’s Center and The Children’s Hospital in the Pediatric subspecialty field of Child Abuse and Neglect from 2001-2003.

Shortly after her arrival in Denver, Dr. Wells began working very closely with Denver’s North Metro Drug Task Force in addressing the difficult issue of child protection as it relates to clandestine methamphetamine laboratories. During that process she assisted in the formation of the Colorado Alliance for Drug Endangered Children where she currently serves as an advisor to the Executive Committee. She also participates in the Medical/Research and the Data Collection Working Groups for the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children.

In October 2005, Dr. Wells was awarded a grant from Health and Human Services Children’s Bureau to develop a model program to better identify and serve substance-exposed newborns and their families. This program, entitled the Colorado Systems Integration Model for Infants, is currently being implemented and tested in Denver County. Additionally, Dr. Wells recently received a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Healthy Tomorrows Program to expand a pilot project that she has developed to provide a medical home for children in foster care in Denver County through the Connections for Kids Clinic at Denver Health. Other areas of research interest include collaborations with her sister, Sandra Wells, PhD, in exploring the health effects of methamphetamine production and use in children. Dr. Wells was recently awarded the inaugural National Collaborative Leadership Award by the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare as well as the Commissioner’s Award from the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Finally, Dr. Wells does additional teaching and research in area of maternal substance abuse and child maltreatment.