Wendy Sue Swanson is a pediatrician, the executive director of Digital Health, and author of the Seattle Mama Doc Blog for Seattle Children’s Hospital. As one of the first pediatricians to blog for a leading children’s hospital, she works diligently to offer patients and parents relevant, practical, and timely health information in accessible, online formats. Swanson speaks nationally on physician use of social media, digital health, and innovation and its role in advocacy and health.
Swanson is an executive committee member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media. She is on the Board of Advisors for Parents magazine and is a platinum fellow on the board for the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media. She is a weekly medical contributor with NBC affiliate KING 5 News in Seattle and a practicing pediatrician with The Everett Clinic.
An advocate on the topic of vaccines, Swanson was named a CDC Childhood Immunization Champion in 2012 and was named to TIME Magazine’s Best Twitter Feeds of 2013. Her first book, Mama Doc Medicine: Finding Calm and Confidence in Parenting, Child Health, and Work-Life Balance was published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in March 2014 and is a Gold Award Recipient of the Mom’s Choice Awards.
Swanson holds a B.A. from Kenyon College and earned an M.D. and M.B.E. (Master’s in Bioethics) at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She completed her residency at Seattle Children’s Hospital.