Her father's diagnosis of lymphoma during Karen Rheuban’searly adolescence played a role in her interest in a career in the health professions. She was encouraged to pursue a a career in medicine by her parents, despite the relative paucity and hardships endured by women physicians of the generation that preceded hers. Dr. Karen Rheuban is playing a key role in 21st-century medicine, using telemedicine to provide the best health care had to offer to rural communities. In essence, she can electronically transport key personnel to a remote operating room or bedside, so that a specialist surgeon can consult from afar during an operation, a dermatologist can offer a second opinion to a local hospital, or a cardiologist can use tele-echocardiography to help determine a diagnosis. Born in Jamaica, New York, in 1949, pediatric cardiologist Karen Rheuban graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State University College of Medicine in 1974. She is currently the medical director of the University of Virginia Office of Telemedicine, part of a team that, using this remarkable tool, saved a 2-day-old baby's life on New Year's Day 2000. When the newborn's abnormal echocardiogram was transmitted from the cardiologist at the Winchester Medical Center to Dr. Rheuban at the University of Virginia, some 130 miles south, she was able to spot a very rare, imminently life-threatening but treatable cardiac defect in the newborn. Her specialty training and expertise in pediatric cardiology were vital for the diagnosis. In addition to providing direct clinical services to patients, Dr. Rheuban oversees a large continuing medical education program, accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education. This program takes advantage of traditional and cutting-edge technology, offering on-site lectures, videoconferencing, computer-assisted instructional materials, and interactive web-based multimedia programs. Dr. Rheuban's research interests include pediatric cardiology, congenital heart disease, telemedicine applied to rural health care, tele-echocardiography, and school telehealth. In addition to many educational programs in the United States, she has coordinated mini-fellowship programs in the People's Republic of China and for Project HOPE (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere) in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Dr. Rheuban is a professor of pediatrics (pediatric cardiology), senior associate dean for continuing medical education and external affairs at the School of Medicine, and medical director of the University of Virginia Office of Telemedicine. She is also a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and of the American College of Cardiology, and a member of the American Telemedicine Association. She was selected by her peers for inclusion in the first edition of The Best Doctors in America: Southeast Region, 1996-1997, and is listed on the 2002 Best Doctors in America database. She and her physician husband have two sons and a daughter.