Leigh Ramos-Platt, MD, a pediatric neurologist with special qualifications in child neurology and clinical neurophysiology, recently joined St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital. She will also serve as vice chair of Pediatrics.
Dr. Ramos-Platt came East from The Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, bringing her expertise in genetic therapy and other treatments for Duchenne and Spinal Muscular Atrophy, both genetic diseases that cause progressive muscle weakness.
“I’m excited to come to this progressive, growing and friendly system with a goal of working with expert teams to help improve quality of life in pediatric patients who suffer from these and other neurologic conditions, which can be either genetic or acquired,” said Dr. Ramos-Platt, who lives in Bethlehem.
A graduate of the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawai’i, Dr. Ramos-Platt completed residencies in general pediatrics and neurology at Loma Linda University Hospital Medical Center, California, and the Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals (Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin), respectively. Her fellowship was in clinical neurophysiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals, where she was the first pediatric fellow. She earned an MBA from Eastern University.
She explains that her lifelong medical passion is “anything electric affecting kids’ muscles and nerves.” Bringing advanced therapies to St. Luke’s, she says, “will ease the burden on patients and families so they don’t have to travel to New York or Philadelphia for this specialty medical care.”
The recent additions of Dr. Ramos-Platt and Amisha Jain, MD, pediatric Pulmonologist and co-division chief of Pediatric Specialty Care expand St. Luke’s expert care across more than 40 pediatric subspecialties, noted Jessika Haynos, Vice President, Women’s and Children’s Service Lines at St. Luke's University Health Network.
"St. Luke's Children's Hospital is committed to providing families with the best primary and specialty care for their children,” Haynos said. “By adding Dr. Ramos-Platt’s expertise in pediatric neurology, we have expanded the care options available to families across the region.”
Dr. Ramos-Platt plans to begin introducing neuromuscular gene transfer programs at St. Luke’s, which have been bringing “great outcomes” in advanced, specialty centers both nationally and worldwide.
“There are hundreds of gene therapy trials active or planned for neurological conditions,” Dr. Ramos-Platt adds. “I’m excited to help bring this treatment to St. Luke’s.”
In 2020, at The Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, she treated a baby with spinal muscular atrophy who was the first such baby to be referred to the hospital through California’s then newly expanded newborn screening program. (See article: Gene Therapy Saves Greigh From a Paralyzing Muscle Disease | Children's Hospital Los Angeles.)
Dr. Ramos-Platt and her husband, Lorne Platt, who has a PhD in geography and teaches geography and urban planning at West Chester University, recently became empty nesters. Their son is a graduate student at Wake Forest University, and their daughter a freshman at Grinnell College in Iowa, where she’s on their tennis team.
Dr. Ramos-Platt plans to take a medical-mission trip to Cambodia this fall as a volunteer and president of “Neuroscience for All,” a not-for-profit whose mission is to contribute neurologic clinical education and equipment to support patient care in the country whose doctors were killed during the 1970s, she said. She speaks English, some Spanish, a little Mandarin and some Khmer, the national language of Cambodia. She is also on the board of Hunter’s Heart Foundation, a non-profit formed to increase awareness and connection for families who have been given the diagnosis of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
When Dr. Ramos-Platt wants to relax, she bakes, jogs, makes jewelry, and takes care the family’s animals, all rescues: a Schnoodle (Buttons), two bunnies (River and Lilly) and two Guinea pigs (Selyse and Gimbap).
