Rachel Lara Dawkins, MD

Dr. Kays is the medical director of the Center for Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH) at Johns Hopkins All Children’s and leads the first unit in the country exclusively dedicated to these patients. He also serves as director of the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) program and co-director of the Fetal Diagnosis/Treatment program. He joined the medical staff in 2016. Dr. Kays has more than two decades of clinical and research leadership in the treatment of CDH, a life-threatening birth defect that affects about one in every 3,000 pregnancies. His research has focused on defining the best treatment strategies for this challenging neonatal diagnosis and contributed to significant advances in care and outcomes. Dr. Kays was previously with UF Health and Shands Children’s Hospital for more than 20 years. He was also surgeon in chief, professor of surgery and chief of the division of pediatric surgery in the University of Florida College of Medicine, Department of Surgery, where he led the ECMO and congenital diaphragmatic hernia program for over 20 years. He is the author or coauthor of more than 60 peer-reviewed original science publications and speaks nationally and internationally on CDH care and outcomes. Dr. Kays earned his medical degree from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. He completed a surgical residency at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester Medical Center, and then completed a pediatric surgery fellowship at Morgan-Stanley Children’s Hospital of Columbia University, New York. Dr. Kays is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of the Children’s Oncology Group.

Dr. Crenshaw is the medical director for the Clinical Genetics Program at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital and also serves as an assistant professor with Johns Hopkins Medicine. Her research interests include congenital heart defects, chromosome abnormalities and Turner Syndrome. She has additional expertise in the genetics of congenital heart disease and connective tissue disorders. After graduating from Cornell University as a Cornell National Scholar and Hughes Research Scholar, Dr. Crenshaw received her medical degree from the State University of New York Health Sciences Center at Syracuse. She completed a pediatrics residency at Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children in Falls Church, VA (a teaching affiliate of the University of Virginia), followed by a three-year medical genetics training program at Johns Hopkins University’s McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine in Baltimore, MD.

Dr. Decker is a pediatric cardiologist specializing in electrophysiology, cardiac arrhythmias, cardiomyopathies and heart failure. He offers innovative and minimally invasive techniques to benefit patients at the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute. He was named the 2023 William A. Baumgartner Physician of the Year for Johns Hopkins All Children's in the Johns Hopkins Medicine Clinical Awards. Before joining All Children’s, Dr. Decker was an assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, where he completed a fellowship in pediatric cardiology, an advanced fellowship in heart failure/transplantation, and an advanced fellowship in pediatric electrophysiology at Baylor College of Medicine. A graduate of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Camden, New Jersey, Dr. Decker did his pediatric residency training at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.