About

Victoria A. Miller, PhD, is a Professor of Pediatrics (Adolescent Medicine) at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a Senior Researcher in the Department of Medical Ethics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania. She is also the Director of Research in the Craig-Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine and holds affiliated faculty positions at the Center for Parent and Teen Communication and the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania. Her educational background includes a BA in Psychology and Biomedical Ethics from Brown University, an MA in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Pediatrics from Case Western Reserve University, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology with a focus on Child/Pediatrics from Case Western Reserve University. Her research expertise centers on developmentally focused investigations that inform child and family decision-making regarding health-related issues. She has conducted research on independent self-management of chronic illnesses, emphasizing the development of decision-making autonomy and competence within the parent-child relationship. Her current longitudinal study, funded by an R01 grant, explores the developmental mechanisms, predictors, and outcomes of children’s decision-making involvement in conditions such as cystic fibrosis and type 1 diabetes. Additionally, she investigates informed consent and assent processes in pediatric medical settings, including the potential benefits of involving children in medical research decisions. She is a co-investigator on studies examining decision-making in children with life-threatening conditions and the return of results in genomic sequencing in pediatric contexts. Clinically, Dr. Miller provides consultation and treatment to children and adolescents with chronic illnesses and their families, focusing on improving coping, reducing distress and family conflict, and increasing treatment adherence. She employs family therapy and cognitive-behavioral techniques to support her patients and their families.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Psychology
• Family medicine
• Developmental psychology
• Clinical psychology

Selected publications

• 103. Menstrual Dysfunction in Adolescents with Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome: A Retrospective Review

  Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology · 2026-03-11

  article
  PublisherDOI

• 535 Understanding what matters: child and caregiver perspectives on reducing medical traumatic stress in cystic fibrosis

  Journal of Cystic Fibrosis · 2025-10-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• 35. Intervention Strategies to Facilitate Adolescent Involvement in Decision Making During Clinic Visits for Chronic Illness: Clinician Perspectives Regarding Acceptability and Barriers

  Journal of Adolescent Health · 2025-02-07

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Parent and adolescent perspectives on decision-making involvement: A qualitative comparison in sickle cell and diabetes clinics

  Patient Education and Counseling · 2025-10-24

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Towards Best Practices for Open Datasets for LLM Training

  ArXiv.org · 2025-01-14 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Many AI companies are training their large language models (LLMs) on data without the permission of the copyright owners. The permissibility of doing so varies by jurisdiction: in countries like the EU and Japan, this is allowed under certain restrictions, while in the United States, the legal landscape is more ambiguous. Regardless of the legal status, concerns from creative producers have led to several high-profile copyright lawsuits, and the threat of litigation is commonly cited as a reason for the recent trend towards minimizing the information shared about training datasets by both corporate and public interest actors. This trend in limiting data information causes harm by hindering transparency, accountability, and innovation in the broader ecosystem by denying researchers, auditors, and impacted individuals access to the information needed to understand AI models. While this could be mitigated by training language models on open access and public domain data, at the time of writing, there are no such models (trained at a meaningful scale) due to the substantial technical and sociological challenges in assembling the necessary corpus. These challenges include incomplete and unreliable metadata, the cost and complexity of digitizing physical records, and the diverse set of legal and technical skills required to ensure relevance and responsibility in a quickly changing landscape. Building towards a future where AI systems can be trained on openly licensed data that is responsibly curated and governed requires collaboration across legal, technical, and policy domains, along with investments in metadata standards, digitization, and fostering a culture of openness.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Provider Experiences of Substance Use Disorder Management in Pediatric Hospitals: A Qualitative Study of Key Informant Interviews

  Journal of Adolescent Health · 2025-02-07

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Clinician, Youth, and Parent Perspectives on Diabetes Technology Education

  The Science of Diabetes Self-Management and Care · 2025-11-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore the educational experiences of youth with type 1 diabetes (T1D), their parents, and clinicians when initiating continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and insulin pumps. METHODS: Twenty parent-child dyads with T1D ≥6 months and ≥1 month CGM and insulin pump use were eligible to participate in semistructured dyadic interviews. Purposive sampling was used to recruit youth with a range of A1C levels and to overrepresent dyads from minoritized backgrounds. Eight diabetes clinicians with ≥1 year of experience participated in individual interviews using a parallel interview guide. A subset of interviews was double-coded, and thematic analysis was used to generate themes. RESULTS: Poor internet connections, distractions in the home, and small screens made in-person education the preferred modality for dyads and clinicians due to the physical skills required when learning to use these devices. Structured education addressing essential topics was constrained by allotted appointment times and thus (1) often overlooked cognitive and emotional burdens of diabetes technology education and (2) insufficiently accounted for individual learning pace and capacity. Real-world experiential learning supported by the clinical team through telemedicine, phone calls, and electronic medical record messaging was often used to fill the gaps of structured education. CONCLUSIONS: Both clinicians and parent-child dyads initiating CGM and automated insulin delivery expressed a preference for in-person education. Although experiential learning can supplement important concepts not adequately addressed during structured education, relying solely on this approach may unintentionally omit crucial concepts. Educational strategies are needed to overcome information overload and support families in diabetes self-management.

  PublisherDOI

• Patient and Parent Characteristics Related to Quality of Life and Self-Esteem in Healthy Youth Undergoing Provocative Growth Hormone Testing

  UNC Libraries · 2025-02-05

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Adolescent, Parent and Clinician Perspectives on Time Alone in Chronic Illness Visits at a Single Children's Hospital

  Child Care Health and Development · 2025-08-05 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND: Time alone between adolescents with chronic illnesses and their clinicians may contribute to patient-centred care and transition readiness within this population. Shifts in the adolescent-parent-clinician relationship underpin this contribution; as such, this qualitative study explored adolescent, parent and clinician perspectives on time alone in routine visits for paediatric chronic illness. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with English-speaking adolescents (ages 12-17, n = 65) and their parents (n = 63) were conducted after follow-up visits for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), sickle cell disease (SCD) or type 1 diabetes (TID) at specialty clinics affiliated with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Clinicians (n = 16) at the same clinics were also interviewed for this cross-sectional qualitative study. Interviews were transcribed, and thematic analysis was performed using an inductive approach. RESULTS: Qualitative analysis yielded six themes: (1) Clinician, parent and adolescent factors influence provision of time alone; (2) some adolescents communicate more openly with their clinician during time alone; (3) some adolescents do not share new information during time alone; (4) time alone facilitates the development of the clinician-adolescent relationship and helps prepare the adolescent for the transition to adult care; (5) clinicians continuously re-negotiate the parent-adolescent-clinician relationship to meet adolescents' needs; and (6) time alone can raise challenges for clinicians. CONCLUSION: Time alone can affect information sharing and relationship building between adolescents with chronic illnesses and their clinicians. By fostering open communication and trust in the adolescent-clinician relationship, time alone may help prepare adolescents with chronic illnesses for the transition to adult care.

  PublisherDOI

• Physician Experiences of Substance Use Disorder Management in Pediatric Hospitals: A Qualitative Study of Key Informant Interviews

  Journal of Adolescent Health · 2025-09-27

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R21HD067554

  NIH · $450k · 2016

• A mixed-methods study of decision making about CGM in youth with type 1 diabetes

  NIH · $252k · 2017–2019

• A new paradigm of short stature: Incorporating parent and youth characteristics into understanding GH-related decision making and trajectories of quality of life and self-esteem

  NIH · $2.4M · 2019–2025

• NIH Grant K23HD055304

  NIH · $339k · 2011

• A longitudinal study of parent-child collaboration in CF and type 1 diabetes

  NIH · $1.7M · 2011–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Robert M. Nelson

  The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

  76 shared

• Mary Frances Luce

  Duke University

  61 shared

• William W. Reynolds

  Naval Medical Center San Diego

  53 shared

• Richard F. Ittenbach

  Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

  52 shared

• Tom L. Beauchamp

  52 shared

• Diane Harris

  National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

  49 shared

• Chris Feudtner

  Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

  44 shared

• Carol A. Ford

  University of Pennsylvania

  36 shared