Doctor, reality show star joins hospital staff

ST. PETERSBURG — Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital has announced the hiring of Dr. Jennifer Arnold to lead its expanding Simulation Center.

Arnold, a nationally known neonatologist and pediatric expert in educational medical simulation, comes to Johns Hopkins All Children's in advance of the center's planned move into a new research and education building slated to open next year. The new facility will triple the center's space and expand its mission, according to the 259-bed hospital.

“Dr. Arnold will help us expand our mission to improve patient safety and outcomes for children,” says Dr. Jonathan Ellen, president and vice dean of Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital.

As medial director, Arnold will train nurses and other physicians on how to deal with emergencies in laboratory and other settings.

In her new role, Arnold will also work as a part-time assistant professor with Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, where she received her medical degree.

Arnold comes to Johns Hopkins All Children's after nine years as medical director of simulation at Texas Children's Hospital, in Houston.

But the move is also a homecoming for Arnold, who together with her husband stars in the TLC network reality television show “The Little Couple,” which explores the subject of living with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia, or dwarfism.

Arnold was born in St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg and spent her first days in the neonatal intensive care unit at All Children's Hospital. She and her husband, Bill Klein, were married in Our Lady of Grace Church, also in St. Petersburg.

“The opportunity at Johns Hopkins All Children's is a perfect fit personally for me, my husband and two kids, and professionally with the growing education and research resources at the hospital,” Arnold says, in a statement.

Eventually, Arnold hopes to expand the simulation programs to parents caring for premature babies.