Keiko Hirose, MD

Keiko Hirose, MD, is a pediatric otolaryngologist and surgeon-scientist whose clinical practice is focused on the care of hearing loss and chronic ear disease in children. She is one of four children, all of whom went to medical school and are now surgeons at academic medical centers.  She attended Columbia College where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Russian Studies and her MD at Harvard Medical School. She completed residency in Otolaryngology at University of Washington in Seattle where she spent one year as a general surgery intern, one year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Virginia Merrell Bloedel Hearing Research Center and four years in Otolaryngology. She moved back to Massachusetts for fellowship in pediatric otolaryngology at Boston Children’s Hospital. She spent an additional year in the research lab as a postdoctoral fellow at the Eaton Peabody Laboratories at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

The Cleveland Clinic was where Dr. Hirose spent her first 6 years as a faculty member. She devoted about 50% of her time to care of children with ear disease and 50% of her time leading a basic research laboratory in auditory neuroscience and innate immunity of the inner ear.  She arrived in St. Louis in 2007 where she became Division Chief of Pediatric Otolaryngology and Vice Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology at WashU School of Medicine. Her basic research laboratory is located at the Central Institute for the Deaf where she continues to investigate inner ear inflammation in conditions such as congenital CMV and pneumococcal meningitis in mouse models. She sees patients and operates at St. Louis Children’s Hospital where she performs cochlear implantation, middle ear surgery for chronic infections and for hearing loss, and other general pediatric otolaryngology procedures.  Outside of work, she enjoys spending time swimming, cooking, scuba diving, and walking her dog, Millie. She enjoys speaking French, Japanese, and hopes to learn new languages in the future.