In delivering the best care for pediatric patients, as well as advancing cutting-edge research, children’s hospitals and the providers within them, must always be at the forefront of best practices for inpatient care. In this pursuit, the PRIS Network was created to be the premier research network for children’s hospitals and hospitalists to continually evaluate and define what those best practices are and how they should be implemented. 
In following its mission, the PRIS Network conducts large, multi-institutional studies in areas of inpatient pediatric care that are relevant to clinicians and the decisions they face when caring for children and their families in day-to-day clinical practice.
And recently, Catherine Forster, MD, MS, FAAP, agreed to join the executive council of the PRIS Network. Forster is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Paul C. Gaffney Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine whose research focuses on the host-pathogen interaction in the urinary tract. She is especially interested in understanding the difference between a true urinary tract infection as opposed to benign bacterial colonization of the urinary tract in children with complex genitourinary systems. She uses a systems biology approach to studying this problem, with a focus on the urobiome.
Forster earned her medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, followed by internship and residency in general pediatrics at the Boston Combined Residency Program at Children's Hospital Boston and Boston Medical Center. After residency, she completed fellowships in both pediatric hospital medicine and general academic pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. She then worked at Children's National Medical Center for 3 years before moving to Pittsburgh. She is board certified in both general pediatrics as well as pediatric hospital medicine.
Pitt Pediatrics congratulates Forster on this wonderful honor and looks forward to the positive impact she will make with the PRIS Network.
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