M. Sue Kirkman MD

M. Sue Kirkman, M.D. is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Kirkman is Medical Director of the UNC Diabetes Care Center’s Clinical Trials Unit and site principal investigator of several clinical trials including the NIDDK-funded GRADE study, for which she serves as co-chair of the Outcomes Committee. She sees patients 50% of the time, and teaches in the classroom and at the bedside. She is co-director of an elective course in diabetes for medical, nursing, and pharmacy students. She was recently appointed a member of the Endocrine Steering Committee for the National Quality Forum.

From 2007-2012, Dr. Kirkman was Senior Vice President, Medical Affairs and Community Information, at the American Diabetes Association. In that role she had primary responsibility for the work of ADA’s Medical Affairs area, including oversight of the ADA’s clinical practice recommendations. She supervised staff responsible for diabetes information and education, nutrition, youth strategies, prevention, and the Association’s four professional journals and its consumer magazine.

Before joining the American Diabetes Association, Dr. Kirkman was on the faculty at Indiana University for 13 years, where she directed the fellowship training program in endocrinology and metabolism, and began her academic career as a faculty member at Duke University for 5 years. At Duke and Indiana University, she was an active clinician-educator, an investigator in many trials of therapies for diabetes and its complications, and a member of multi-site study groups including the VA Implantable Pump Study, the VA Diabetes Trial, and the Diabetes Prevention Program.

Dr. Kirkman received her medical degree from the University of North Carolina and completed postgraduate training in Internal Medicine at the University of Utah and in Endocrinology and Metabolism at Duke University.