Welcoming Dr Shaun Kunisaki as a Medical Advisor
We’re delighted to share that Dr Shaun M. Kunisaki is joining CPAM Parents as a Medical Advisor.
The founding goal of CPAM Parents was to meet parents in that moment of diagnosis with clear, calm information they could actually trust, and to make sure no mom has to navigate a congenital lung malformation diagnosis alone.
Having Dr Kunisaki on board is a truly meaningful step forward in our mission.
Who is Dr Kunisaki?
Dr Shaun M. Kunisaki, MD, MSc, is Professor of Surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Associate Chief of Strategy and Integration in the Division of General Pediatric Surgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, where he directs the Fetal Program in General Pediatric Surgery. In addition, he serves as Director of Pediatric Esophageal Surgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
Dr Kunisaki is widely recognized as a national and international authority in the prenatal and postnatal management of congenital thoracic anomalies, including congenital lung malformations. At Johns Hopkins, he chairs the Prenatal Pediatrics Steering Committee, a collaboration between Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and the Department of Gynecology & Obstetrics at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, strengthening coordination across fetal diagnosis, counseling, and care.
Dr Kunisaki is deeply involved in advancing the field through research and professional leadership. He leads the American Pediatric Surgical Association Fetal Committee as well as the Congenital Lung Malformation Study Group, a clinical research collaborative spanning over 20 children’s hospitals in the United States. He is an NIH-funded investigator who has published over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters focused on improving outcomes for children with complex congenital conditions.
A native of southern California, Dr. Kunisaki graduated with honors from Harvard College, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Harvard Medical School. He completed general surgery residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School followed by a pediatric surgery fellowship at the University of Michigan. He also did additional research fellowships at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at Boston Children's Hospital.
Expert-reviewed information parents can trust
One of the hardest parts of a prenatal diagnosis is the information gap. Parents are often sent home with limited context—or even misleading information—then quickly find themselves in a “Google rabbit hole” of outdated articles, frightening images, conflicting opinions, and extreme worst-case-scenario stories. Even when information is accurate, it’s rarely written for parents, and almost never shaped around the real questions families are trying to answer in the middle of a stressful, emotional time.
Dr Kunisaki’s support will help us continue building high-quality, expert-reviewed materials that parents can actually trust: resources that reflect current understanding, explain uncertainty honestly, and support families in having clearer, more confident conversations with their clinical teams.
A necessary goal: parent–clinician partnerships
At CPAM Parents, we believe something simple but powerful: parents/patients and clinicians each hold pieces of the same puzzle.
Clinicians bring deep medical expertise, understanding, and pattern-recognition from caring for many patients over many years. Parents bring an understanding of what it actually feels like for a baby to receive a CLM diagnosis, to make decisions under uncertainty, to advocate and to cope through it all.
Too often, those perspectives sit in parallel—or even at odds with each other—rather than in partnership. We believe if we bring them together thoughtfully and respectfully, we can improve care in practical ways: better communication, better education, better research questions, improved maternal mental health during and after a CLM pregnancy, and more humane, family-centered decision-making.
We’re excited to work alongside Dr Kunisaki in building that bridge.
More soon.