Bergen Nelson, MD, MS, is a general pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Richmond, and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. She is a graduate of Wellesley College, Harvard Medical School, the Pediatric Leadership for the Underserved (PLUS) program at UCSF, and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at UCLA. Clinically, she sees patients in primary care pediatrics and the newborn nursery, and also has a number of funded research projects to develop and evaluate effective ways to link families with young children from primary care to community services and social supports.
Dr. Nelson is the Medical Director for Reach Out And Read Virginia as well as Virginia’s federally-funded Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) project, Early Childhood Champion for the Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Primary Care Physician lead for the Virginia Mental Health Access Program (VMAP), and Clinical Director for the Virginia Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program. She serves and has served on several boards including the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation, the Virginia Association of Infant Mental Health, and Early Impact Virginia. Dr. Nelson is a passionate advocate for child and family well-being, and loves working across disciplines to create systems of care that support families with young children and promote optimal developmental outcomes. She lives outside of Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and two children.