Rachel St. John, M.D.

Biography

Rachel St. John, M.D., is a Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She serves as Director of the Family-Focused Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children at Children’s Medical Center. She specializes in care coordination for deaf and hard of hearing patients.

Dr. St. John earned her medical degree at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and completed her residency in pediatrics at Georgetown University. She also holds a master’s degree in counseling from Gallaudet University and certification as an NIC Advanced sign language interpreter from the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. In addition, she completed the Mental Health Interpreter Training Program at Troy State University.

Certified by the American Board of Pediatrics, she joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2012.

Dr. St. John’s clinical and academic interests include developmental outcomes for deaf and hard of hearing children, early language access, and medical education. She serves as an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention and Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and is on the editorial board for Laryngoscope Investigative Otolaryngology. She has previously served as an American Academy of Pediatrics delegate to the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing and is currently co-chairing a national mentoring and discussion group on children who are deaf/hard of hearing with autism. 

She runs several institutional quality improvement/oversight programs, including audiologic evaluation for children with bacterial meningitis, pneumococcal vaccination in children with cochlear implants, and reducing time to diagnostic evaluation for deaf children with suspected autism.

She is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Dallas County Medical Society, the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, the Society for Ear Nose and Throat Advancement in Children, and the Texas Pediatric Society.