MD
Rady Children's Hospital
Kimberly Bower, MD HMDC FAAHPM is board certified in Family Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. She attended Smith College and then medical school at the University of Kansas. She did her family medicine residency training at Brown University and in July of 2004 she started her fellowship in Hospice & Palliative Medicine at San Diego Hospice & the Institute for Palliative Medicine (SDHIPM). In July of 2006 she became a medical director at SDHIPM where she provided medical leadership for the pediatric hospice program and perinatal program. Under her leadership SDHIPM was one of the first piolet sites for the Partners for Children Program which provided home-based palliative care through a Medi-Cal waiver. She also acted as core faculty within the palliative medicine fellowship program designing a pediatric track within the fellowship and the pediatric curriculum for the adult palliative medicine fellows. In February of 2014 she became the first Chief of Palliative Medicine at Rady Children’s Hospital. In this role, she started palliative medicine out-patient clinics as well as providing medical leadership in a new home-based palliative care program. In 2018 she became a medical director for Blue Shield of California (BSC) where she serves as the clinical leader for the statewide palliative care program as well as focusing on population health initiatives for Medi-Cal members. In March of 2024 Dr. Bower left BSC. She is currently on the faculty of the UCSD / Scripps Health Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program and is an attending palliative medicine physician at Rady Children’s Hospital.