Rita Marie Ryan, MD

Rita Marie Ryan, MD, FAAP, is a neonatologist in the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Dr. Ryan is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine and had been practicing clinical neonatology for more than 30 years. Her special interests include neonatal lung biology, surfactant and neonatal respiratory disease.

Rita earned her undergraduate degree from the Johns Hopkins University, Balitimore, and her medical degree from the State University of New York-Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse, N.Y. Dr. Ryan served a residency in pediatrics at SUNY-Upstate and a fellowship in neonatal-perinatal medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Ryan was on the faculty at the University of Rochester for 11 years and Chief of Neonatology at University at Buffalo, also for 11 years; she was the Director of the Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship Program, at both institutions. She then was recruited in 2011, as Chair of Pediatrics at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C., and after stepping down as chair, was there for a total of eight years as a full-time member of the Division of Neonatology and Professor of Pediatrics. Dr. Ryan joined the UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital Division of Neonatology in 2019.

Dr. Ryan has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in medical journals, several textbook chapters and several reviews. She is a frequent lecturer at national conferences, speaking on neonatal lung disease. Dr. Ryan has served on National Institutes of Health study sections and been invited to participate in NIH Workshops.

Dr. Ryan is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, a founding Fellow of the American Thoracic Society and a member of the Society for Pediatric Research, and the Perinatal Research Society. She is Associate Editor of both the Journal of Perinatology and Pediatric Pulmonology.