A Marion Ybarra, MD, MS is a pediatric transplant cardiologist and Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics. Dr. Ybarra serves as the director of the Multidisciplinary Fontan Clinic for St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University. Dr Ybarra received her medical degree from St. George’s University in 2012, completed pediatric residency in 2015 at Atlantic Health Systems in Morristown, NJ. She then completed a categorical cardiology fellowship at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in 2018, followed by a Pediatric Heart failure and Transplant fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. While mostly focused on clinical medicine, Dr. Ybarra has focused her research on post-transplant outcomes, particularly in Fontan patients.
Examining Fragility in the Pediatric & Elderly Populations
Thursday, May 21, 2026, at 3:00pm
Candidates for kidney transplantation are increasingly older and medically frail, with frailty associated with higher waitlist mortality, perioperative complications, and poorer post-transplant outcomes. The use of medical frailty screening tools in the pre-transplant evaluation setting will be highlighted, with a focus on elderly patients. Since 2022, the pediatric heart transplant program at St. Louis Children’s Hospital has experienced a 23% increase in median time from listing to transplant, elevating risk during prolonged inpatient waits. A standardized inpatient prehabilitation approach will be examined, including implementation of a frailty score and a daily prehabilitation checklist to support patient conditioning prior to transplant.
