~RGVRC Affiliate Scholar~

Sandra McKay, MD, FAAP, is a professor and division chief of general academic pediatrics at the McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. Dr McKay is also the vice chair for advocacy and the director of pediatric population health. She attended the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine and completed residency at Saint Louis University/Cardinal Children’s Hospital. She is a firearm injury prevention researcher and has innovated undergraduate and graduate medical education advocacy curricula relating to poverty and firearm secure storage counseling within the clinical encounter. She has also created statewide coalitions to address firearm suicide prevention and secure storage counseling, engaging with firearm retailers in community-based participatory research. She is also a policy analyst, serving as a nonresident fellow with the Baker Institute for Public Policy, and teaches health policy with Rice University and UTHealth Houston. She is the president-elect of the Texas Pediatric Society and serves on the AAP’s executive committee for the Council on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention.