About

Benjamin R. Chan, MD, MBA, MEd, is an Associate Professor (Clinical) in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Utah School of Medicine, specializing in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. He attended Stanford University, graduating in 2000 with a BA in Psychology and a minor in Human Biology. He earned his medical degree from the University of Utah School of Medicine in 2004 and completed training in General Psychiatry at George Washington University, followed by a fellowship in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Maryland. Dr. Chan joined the University of Utah in 2010, where he has mentored medical students and resident physicians and has delivered lectures to second and third-year medical students. He has also completed the Medical Scholars Program and serves on the Education Steering Committee, as well as being a small group leader in the Clinical Method Curriculum. In addition to his clinical and teaching roles, Dr. Chan has taken on administrative responsibilities, including serving as Assistant Dean of Admissions and later as Associate Dean of Admissions and Idaho Affairs. He helped create and directs the Rural & Underserved Utah Training Experience (RUUTE), aimed at improving medical education opportunities and healthcare access in rural and underserved communities throughout Utah. His academic credentials include an MBA from the David Eccles School of Business and an MEd from the University of Cincinnati. His research and clinical interests focus on psychiatry, autism, mood disorders, and behavioral health in children and adolescents.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Pediatrics
• Internal medicine
• Surgery
• Radiology
• Statistics
• Physical therapy
• Orthodontics
• Mechanical engineering
• Clinical psychology
• Biomedical engineering
• General surgery
• Anatomy
• Medical physics
• Genetics
• Biology
• Intensive care medicine
• Physical medicine and rehabilitation
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Expert Consensus Framework for Standardizing Lung Ultrasound Training for Neonatologists Issued by ESPNIC Neonatal Critical Care Section and Point-of-Care Ultrasound Working Group

  CHEST Journal · 2026-03-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Feeding Approach to Optimizing Nutrition in Infants with Congenital Heart Disease

  Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease · 2025-01-22 · 5 citations

  reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Congenital heart disease (CHD) affects 1% of live births globally. Infants with CHD often experience growth faltering and malnutrition due to increased metabolic demands, malabsorption, and feeding intolerance, further worsened by surgical interventions and frequent hospitalizations. Malnutrition in this population is linked to higher morbidity, extended hospital stays, and poor neurodevelopmental outcomes. The physiological diversity among CHD types presents significant challenges in developing a universal feeding strategy to optimize nutrition. This narrative review explores the interplay between CHD physiology and nutritional management. CHD types could be categorized into three hemodynamic groups-systemic hypoperfusion, global hypoxia, and pulmonary overcirculation-which help to consider a feeding approach based on such physiology. Nutritional management in these infants could be further tailored based on the disease severity, co-morbidities, and evolving hemodynamic changes. Based on clinical opinions, this review proposes a hemodynamic-focused risk-stratified feeding approach, considering ways that may enhance growth while possibly minimizing complications such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), pulmonary overload, and worsening heart failure. This approach may help individualize nutritional management to address the complex needs of infants with CHD. Further quality improvement studies are needed to assess this approach. Beyond meeting macronutrient needs, micronutrients, including zinc, thiamine, magnesium, vitamin A, and calcium, potentially play a role in cardiovascular health. Given the complexity of nutritional management in these infants, a multidisciplinary team may be needed to optimize care, including cardiologists, neonatologists, pediatricians, dietitians, speech therapists, and pharmacists. With the current knowledge gap and lack of strong evidence, research should focus on nutritional interventions and study their potential impact on infant outcomes with CHDs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Editorial: POCUS for neonates - advancing care with point-of-care ultrasound

  Frontiers in Pediatrics · 2025-10-28 · 1 citations

  editorialOpen accessSenior author

  The clinical application of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in neonatology has expanded dramatically over the recent decade, driven by the easy availability of portable machines and its proven value in making better physiology-based clinical decisions. POCUS has been demonstrated to be superior to chest X-rays and other bedside available tools in making accurate diagnoses, targeting specific interventions, and enhancing procedure safety. Its ability to perform serial evaluations helps in understanding the disease process and evaluating the response to intervention.Beyond diagnostics, POCUS enhances procedural success rates for central line placement, lumbar puncture, and thoracentesis, reducing complications compared to traditional 'blind' techniques. Its radiation-free nature also makes it a safer alternative to CT scan or X-ray, particularly for newborns. These benefits make POCUS an attractive imaging tool in the intensive care unit.However, neonatal POCUS lags behind as compared to adult medicine. To promote a safe use of POCUS and enhance clinical governance, the European Society of Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care (ESPNIC) society issued the first international evidence-based guidelines on use of POCUS in neonatal and pediatric intensive care units (2020), followed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) clinical and technical reports (2022) 1,2 . There remains uncertainty about whether widespread adoption will improve the outcomes in the NICU. This Research Topic, 'POCUS for Neonates: Advancing Care with Point-of-Care Ultrasound,' brings together 10 peer-reviewed articles that enhance knowledge on how POCUS can be utilized for accurate and timely diagnosis, guide interventions, and improve decisionmaking in the NICU. Battacharjee et al. reported that repeated X-ray exposure was linked to developmental delay, underscoring the value of radiation-free imaging such as POCUS. Beyond being a reliable diagnostic and procedural tool, [1][2] Tomaszkiewicz et al. performed outcomes studies showing that POCUS impacts care by enhancing efficiency in umbilical venous catheter placement and reducing complications. LUS with qualitative scoring has been widely used for decades to predict surfactant need in preterm infants with respiratory distress syndrome, but standardized approaches remain lacking. 3 Several studies here focused on LUS protocol standardization and application validation. With the availability of ultra-high-frequency probes (UHFUS) (~30-70 MHz), neonatal POCUS is less limited by the small size and superficial location of neonatal structures. UHFUS offers significantly higher spatial resolution for very superficial tissues (typical penetration of ~1-3 cm) and has demonstrated feasibility in pediatric and neonatal imaging of lung, gastrointestinal, and musculoskeletal imaging. 5,6 As POCUS applications expand, research must also address effective methods for delivering high-quality and most efficient training for the clinicians.The pace of innovation in technology used in the medical field, especially in imaging, is extremely fast. Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help address operator dependence, variability in image quality, and challenges in quantitative analysis that characterize POCUS. The AI applications include better imaging optimization, help with the best possible imaging acquisition, rapid image analysis, and data processing. 7,8 Enhanced AI applications include realtime acquisition guidance that provides step-by-step feedback for probe placement and automatically stores optimal images. 7,8 This will help in POCUS training for new users, especially those in low-resource areas, which is another important POCUS research area. Other automated tools offer functions such as B-line counting for lung ultrasound scoring, inferior vena cava (IVC) compressibility assessment for intravascular volume status, velocity-time integral (VTI) calculations for cardiac output, and real-time ejection fraction (EF) measurements. Chan et al. developed an algorithm to automatically quantify the proportion of anechoic cerebrospinal fluid within the spinal canal to correlate with intraventricular hemorrhage severity. 9 All these tools still require extensive validation due to both known and unknown limitations, particularly the inadequate neonatal data pool for machine learning. Despite these advances, several limitations hinder the widespread clinical adoption of AIenabled POCUS. Most models are trained on relatively small or homogeneous datasets, which limits generalizability across diverse patient populations, ultrasound machines, and clinical settings. The volume of neonatal imaging data available for machine learning remains insufficient, and many automated tools have not been adapted for neonatal physiology. Addressing these limitations through multicenter validation, transparent algorithm design, and thoughtful clinical integration will be critical for AI to achieve its potential in the field of ultrasonography.In this editorial, we reflect on the rapidly evolving role of POCUS, some of the araes featured in this Research Topic, and outline future directions. POCUS is changing the way clinicians practice in the intensive care unit; however, continued investigation is essential to strengthen the body of evidence around its impact on improving patient outcomes. Future directions should include studies focused on patient outcomes, standardization of clinical applications, validation of guidelines and protocols, quality assurance, technological innovation, and how best to provide POCUS training. (Figure 1)

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Spinal Ultrasound Assessment of Correlation Between Intraventricular Hemorrhage Severity and Cerebrospinal Fluid Volume in Preterm Infants

  Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine · 2025-05-28 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  OBJECTIVES: Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) affects >15% of preterm infants. Severe IVH disrupts cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow dynamics, causing post-hemorrhagic ventricular dilation (PHVD) and further brain injury. Although lumbar puncture (LP) may reduce CSF volume and intracranial pressure, its effectiveness depends on brain-to-spine CSF flow dynamics and spinal CSF volume, which remain underexplored. This study correlates IVH severity with spinal CSF volume of preterm infants using spinal ultrasound (SUS). METHODS: This prospective study enrolled infants (<33 weeks gestational age [GA]) with head ultrasounds (HUS) done at 7-15 days of life. SUS was performed within 2 days of HUS and repeated if another HUS was done. Exclusion criteria were congenital, chromosomal, or spinal anomalies. Using SUS clips, an automated algorithm calculating the proportion of anechoic CSF area within the spinal canal at the L3-L4 intervertebral space, termed the CSF-to-Spinal Canal Index (CSCI) was developed. Clinical data and IVH grades were analyzed. RESULTS: = 0.13, P = .57). The CSCI did not correlate with birth GA, birth weight, corrected GA, current weight, day of life, and previous 24-hour weight change at the time of SUS. The CSCI decreased after each LP in 4 infants with PHVD. Four infants needed surgical CSF diversion. CONCLUSIONS: SUS is a non-invasive method to estimate spinal CSF volume. The lack of correlation with IVH severity suggests multifactorial mechanisms besides previously proposed CSF outflow obstruction. Further research is necessary to understand the pathophysiology of PHVD.

  PublisherDOI

• Factors associated with rates and durations of cord clamping practice compliance in preterm neonates of &lt;33 weeks’ gestation

  Journal of Perinatology · 2025-06-01 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Neonatal SONography Assisted Resuscitation (NeoSONAR): Scoping review of the current literature and future directions

  Journal of Perinatology · 2025-10-29

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Ultrasound is increasingly utilized during cardiac arrest in adult populations. The European Society of Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care and the American Academy of Pediatrics have published guidelines on the use of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in neonates and children. However, there were no specific recommendations for its use during the Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) algorithm. In this narrative review, we map the existing evidence to evaluate its role, potential benefits, and limitations of POCUS integration during neonatal resuscitation. The limited available studies, mostly case reports, suggest that POCUS can aid in the early identification of correctable or modifiable causes, evaluation of cardiac function, detection of heart rate or pulseless electrical activity, and guidance of resuscitative efforts. Significant gaps remain in knowledge, research studying its feasibility and benefits, and a lack of specific training and standardized protocols for integrating POCUS into the NRP algorithm, emphasizing the need for further research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Neonatal point-of-care ultrasound—guidelines for training, credentialing and quality assurance

  Journal of Perinatology · 2025-08-01 · 6 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become essential for diagnosing and managing critically ill newborns. This technology offers rapid, non-invasive assessments and supports bedside clinical decision-making. Although POCUS applications in neonatology continue to expand, there remains a lack of standardized training, certification, and credentialing processes. This paper provides expert-based perspectives and guidelines for implementing neonatal POCUS, focusing on the core components of competency, credentialing, and quality assurance (QA). Recommendations include performing a minimum number of scans for various neonatal applications, integrating competency assessments into training programs, and ensuring a robust image repository and reporting pathway. Neonatal POCUS improves patient care, and establishing clear standards and frameworks will enhance provider performance, and ensure patient safety in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs).

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Increased Caregiver Interaction with the NICU Environment during Medication Administration May Contribute to Higher Infection Rates: A Pilot Observational Study

  American Journal of Perinatology · 2025-07-14

  article

  Abstract After nearly 3 years without a single central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI), our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) experienced a significant rise in CLABSI rates beginning in 2019. The increase coincided with changes made to the intravenous (IV) medication pump integration process, which added more safety checks and procedural steps. This study aimed to investigate the potential association between these process changes and increased CLABSI and non-CLABSI (bloodstream infection, BSI) rates prior to inclusion in a future QI project Key Driver Diagram. This observational pilot study used a mixed-methods approach, including statistical process control analysis to confirm a special-cause increase in CLABSI rate, human factors observations, and environmental microbiome sampling focusing on the equipment involved in the IV pump integration. We compared these findings to the CLABSI and BSI rates to identify temporal and geographic associations. Following the 2019 implementation of IV pump integration, statistically significant increases in CLABSI and BSI rates were observed. The enhanced safety checks added steps to IV medication administrations, with timestamp observation indicating up to 14 location changes around the bed spaces and a mean of 5.5 minutes for any IV medication administration. Environmental microbial sampling showed a 27% positivity rate. The highest microbial burden was found on patient-specific mobile equipment (30%) used during IV medication administration, including isolettes, IV hubs, and glove boxes, compared with other equipment (26%) like nursing computers or ventilators (p = 0.093). A strong overlap was observed between the microorganisms found in the NICU environment and those responsible for positive patient blood cultures, particularly coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CONS). Though not statistically significant, the findings suggest that the added complexity and extended duration of the modified IV pump integration process may have increased the frequency of caregiver interactions with the NICU environment, exposing immune-vulnerable NICU patients to a higher risk of infection. Further human factors analysis and quality improvement efforts are necessary to simplify the IV medication administration process, reduce environmental microbial loads, and decrease infection rates.

  PublisherDOI

• Neonatal point-of-care ultrasound—steps for program development

  Journal of Perinatology · 2025-08-01 · 2 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is increasingly being utilized in the neonatal field; however, there is a lack of standardized guidance on the development of POCUS programs in neonatology. While subspecialties with decades of POCUS experience have established pathways for program development and training guidelines, such frameworks are absent in neonatal and perinatal medicine. Recent national and international publications have highlighted the need for structured program development and have established recommendations regarding standards for POCUS use, including minimum number of scans, competency-based assessments, and a strong quality improvement (QI) framework. This publication aims to provide steps toward program development for neonatal intensive care units eager to establish POCUS to augment the care of their patients.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Improving diagnostic interpretability of abdominal ultrasound for neonates with suspected intestinal injury

  Frontiers in Pediatrics · 2025-10-23 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Background: Abdominal ultrasound (AUS) is increasingly utilized as a diagnostic adjunct in neonates undergoing evaluation for intestinal injuries such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), spontaneous intestinal perforation (SIP), volvulus, and intestinal obstruction, which need urgent surgical evaluation and often emergent intervention. However, the interpretability of AUS-defined as the number of explicit documentations of high-risk ultrasound findings (HRF)-varies in radiology reports, potentially influenced by clinical and technical factors. Objective: To identify clinical and technical factors associated with increased interpretability of neonatal AUS in the evaluation of suspected intestinal injury needing surgical intervention. Methods: This retrospective, single-center case series reviewed AUS exams performed from 2022 to 2024 at a level IV neonatal intensive care unit. All neonates who had AUS performed prior to exploratory laparotomy were included in the study. For this project "interpretability of AUS" was defined as the number of explicit reporting of eight predefined HRF indicative of surgical need: pneumoperitoneum, increased or decreased bowel wall thickness, reduced intestinal perfusion on color Doppler, absent or decreased peristalsis, bowel dilation, complex intra-abdominal fluid collections, and reversed orientation of the superior mesenteric artery and vein. Clinical and technical factors that may have potentially influenced interpretability were analyzed. Results: weeks, and the median birth weight was 1.93 kg. The median HRF of all AUS exams were 2 (range 0-8). Higher-frequency ultrasound transducers (>10 MHz) improved interpretability of AUS images (HRF 4 vs. 1), particularly in neonates weighing <2 kg. Serial ultrasound evaluations within seven days of surgery were associated with greater interpretability compared to a single isolated exam (HRF 6 vs. 3). Clinical symptoms with hypotension or abdominal discoloration and examinations ordered with comprehensive clinical details for the attention of radiology team showed trends towards improved interpretability. Conclusions: In our pilot study, interpretability of neonatal AUS images was strongly influenced by using higher-frequency transducers (>10 MHz) with better resolution, particularly in neonates weighing <2 kg. Obtaining serial imaging improved subsequent interpretability.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Hailey Alston

  Christian Health Association of Nigeria

  16 shared

• Heather R. Walker

  University of Glasgow

  16 shared

• Gina Clarkson

  16 shared

• Yogen Singh

  UC Davis Children's Hospital

  14 shared

• Cindy Mak

  Chris O’Brien Lifehouse

  12 shared

• Yiming Xing

  China Agricultural University

  12 shared

• Zea Borok

  University of California, San Diego

  12 shared

• Parviz Minoo

  University of Southern California

  11 shared

Education

• B.A., Psychology

  Stanford University

  2000

• M.D.

  University of Utah School of Medicine

  2004

• Other

  David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah

• Other

  University of Cincinnati

Awards & honors

• Medical Scholars Program through the School of Medicine