Biography
Dr. Kielb is a board-certified urologist with a subspecialty certification in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery (now called urogynecology). From Michigan originally, she attended Waynes State University in Detroit majoring in chemistry, attended medical school and completed her internship in surgery and residency in urology at the University of Michigan. She spent twenty-one years on faculty at Northwestern University in Chicago rising to the rank of Professor of Urology and Medical Education, served as the urology residency program director from 2006 to2023 and currently serves as vice chair of the Accreditation Counsel for Graduate Medical Education (ACMGE) National Residency Committee for Urology. She is passionate about medical education and mentorship, having mentored many graduate students, medical students, and residents particulary encouraging and supporting women in urology and surgery.
She is a recognized expert in voiding dysfunction and incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, neurourology, and congenital urology. Dr. Kielb was the director of the multi-disciplinary adult spina bifida clinic for 20 years- previously at Shirley Ryan Ability Lab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago) and established and served as the medical director of the Northwestern Medicine Transitional Adult Congenital Genitourinary Clinic (TRAC), a multispecialty clinic for patients with a variety of conditions, including spina bifida, bladder and cloacal exstrophy, epispadias, and many others. She is a founding member of the American Urological Association Working Group on Congenitalism and has published extensively on the needs and outcomes of this patient population. She has chaired several international summits on Congenitalism, participated as a speaker and co-chair for many other such meetings, and been a presenter and speaker at the World Congress of Spina Bifida. She developed the first subspecialty fellowship devoted to training urologists in the field of Congenital Urology.
Dr. Kielb is also committed to global health, serving as mission leader and sitting on the medical board of the International Organization for Women and Development, a charity devoted to obstetric fistula repair and medical education in Kigali, Rwanda. Since 2012, Dr. Kielb has traveled there twice a year to work and teach. She has received numerous awards for this work, including a Catalyzer Grant from the Havey Institute for Global Health, Northwestern University, the Humanitarian Award from the Urology Care Foundation of the American Urological Association, and was nominated for the Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award at Northwestern. She is currently working to develop a urology residency educational exchange program with the Rwandan Urological Society and Ministry of Health including a female urology/urogynecology certificate program.
Appointments
Areas of Interest
Research Interests: Congenital/transitional urology, quality of life and bowel and bladder continence, pelvic organ prolapse in women with spina bifida, renal outcomes in spina bifida, exstrophy-epispadias complex and other uncommon conditions, gender difference in case logs, gender bias in residency applications and educational outcomes
Clinical Interests: Neurourology, congenital urology, including long-term management and complex surgical reconstruction in this patient population, voiding dysfunction, incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, sacral neuromodulation therapy, stone disease in neurourology population
Credentials
Medical School
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 1996
Residency
- Urology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2002
Board Certification
- Urology
- Urogynecology and Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery
Professional Organizations
- American Urological Association
- University of Michigan Reed M. Nesbit Society
- Society of Women in Urology
- Chicago Urological Society
- Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine, and Urogenital Reconstruction
- Society of Academic Urologists
- American Medical Association