Kayla Cort, DO Spotlight
September 30, 2022
Kayla Cort, DO, is driven by both an intellectual desire to learn and a moral need to help. She was drawn to radiology by its cerebral atmosphere, where her desire to make the greatest possible positive impact pulled her first into pediatrics and then across the Caribbean to help build radiology programs in her father’s homeland of Guyana. She is by inclination an investigator, a protector, and an educator.
Dr. Cort is an assistant professor of Clinical Radiology in the Pediatric Radiology section and a pediatric radiologist based at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital where she covers a variety of imaging modalities and body systems. She also sees patients one day a week at Mission Bay. Dr. Cort has been with the UC since August of 2019, starting as assistant clinical professor and director of pediatric ultrasound at UC Davis Medical Center before she joined UCSF in February of 2022.
Growing up in New York City, Dr. Cort was first guided toward the medical field by her father, who runs home health care agencies. As she went through her education, becoming fluent in French and Italian on the way, she knew she wanted to do something that felt like she was making a positive difference in the world. “I have always had a great appreciation for language and the arts, so there were always different career paths tugging at me, but given my skill set, I felt that medicine was the best way to make that positive impact.”
Dr. Cort earned her DO degree at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Philadelphia, PA. She completed an internship in medicine at Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, NJ, and a diagnostic radiology residency at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, followed by a pediatric radiology fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, PA.
Dr. Cort started her medical education with the goal of becoming a pediatrician or an OBGYN. However, she was eventually drawn to the intellectual atmosphere of radiology. “I knew I wanted to be taking care of children, either perinatally or directly as a pediatric clinician. Then when I did my first medical school radiology rotation, I realized that I like the opportunity radiology affords you to collect your thoughts, sitting in a reading room carefully crafting your reports. Yet you still interact with other clinicians from all over the hospital, so radiologists have the opportunity to be very hands on without that crucible of stress other areas of clinical medicine might exhibit.”
At UCSF she has found a group of colleagues who are all motivated by the same mission. “What has always drawn me to pediatrics is that everyone is contributing to the care of a child and we can feel like everybody is part of the exact same team.”
In addition to her desire to contribute to the care of children, pediatric radiology also provided an intellectual allure. “With the spectrum of modalities that we cover, as far as CT, MRI, and others, there's often a lot oflot more diversity in that than a lot of the adult imagers. And there is also the a fascinating diversity of anatomy since pediatrics can cover everything from a fetus to a person in their early 20s. Every day I think, ‘I learned something at work today.’”
Much of that is due to the excellent group of colleagues and other support at Benioff Children’s Hospital. “Everyone in my group is humble about their knowledge. When we need to, we all put our heads together and activate the brain trust to solve a problem. There’s a delight that comes from just figuring things out and having people around you to help you work through it.”
This sense of community and collaboration was a wonderful thing to discover upon starting her role at UCSF. “When I was at UC Davis Medical Center, I was still living in the Bay Area so I often felt my time was spent more in the commute than in the community. I didn’t have the time or the availability. But here at Benioff, I have found a community among physicians and other people I work with to be very close knit. We have a walking group, and a swimming group, and a book club. I feel very much a part of the community even though I haven't been here very long.
Dr. Cort has, throughout her training and career, also been strongly connected to international volunteer work. The organization RAD-AID is a nonprofit public service enabling radiologists y experts to serve the world community by bringing imaging to low-resource areas through delivering education, equipment, infrastructure, and support. “I started my RAD-AID international volunteer work when I was still in residency. I felt a strong connection to the radiology residency program they operate in Guyana and South America because my dad is from Guyana originally. I still have family there. This program was an opportunity to visit and also be a part of support this important groundbreaking effort, the first and only radiology residency in the country and help support its growth. I serve by as an expert providing educational material for the residents and consults and. I've also served as an examiner for the radiology residents boards exam, which has for the past two years been the first and only radiology residency in the country. We've graduated two classes so far, which is a really great thing and a fantastic achievement.”
COVID precautions have prevented any recent visits to Guyana, but she and the other international volunteers have managed to adapt, performing zoom lectures for students residents and using WhatsApp groups to help with questions regarding different diagnoses and imaging techniques.
Dr. Kayla Cort, born New Yorker, was in a way drawn here to California by love. First, she visited our state to attend the wedding of a close friend from college, and it was at that wedding where Kayla met her now husband. They have just celebrated their own marriage in August of this year. Together, they have not let the cloud of the pandemic limit their horizons and have explored all the outdoors our nation has to offer from the ski mountains to the Grand Canyon.
