Dr. Kabir has a unique and extensive training background. At the heart of it lies her passion for child advocacy, prevention, mental health, and wellness. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology (neuroscience focus) with a minor in French from Duke University and her medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, becoming a devoted fan of college basketball in the process!

As a college student, Dr. Kabir underwent intensive training to become a Guardian ad Litem volunteer for the Durham County District Court. There she worked alongside attorneys to advocate for the best interests of abused children. On one occasion, her child advocacy work caught the attention of an attorney in the courtroom. When he discovered she was applying to medical school, he offered her a family foundation scholarship-on the spot-that covered her entire medical school tuition! She knew then, without any doubt, that she was headed on the right career path.

Following her medical school graduation, she completed two years of residency training in Ob-Gyn at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, where she performed laparoscopic surgeries, C-sections and delivered over 500 babies! Dr. Kabir then transferred to Children’s Hospital Colorado, to focus on the health care needs of children. She spent three years training in Pediatrics, followed by a year of clinical training in Adolescent Medicine, a subspecialty of Pediatrics, focused on the medical care of patients ages 11 years through their mid-20’s.

Following this training, she was employed for three years at Denver Health Medical Center, where she served teens from under-resourced families at the Westside Family Health Center Teen clinic. During these years she collaborated closely with the OB-Gyn department where she provided prenatal care and colposcopy services for young mothers. It was in this setting that she first combined her unique background in both Ob-Gyn and Pediatrics, performing mom-baby visits simultaneously. Mothers received routine prenatal care, postpartum care, contraceptive management and depression screening while their children were simultaneously provided pediatric care.  

In 2004, when the Children’s Hospital Colorado became accredited as an academic training site for Adolescent Medicine, Dr. Kabir returned to complete this additional training.  She is now dual-board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics in two specialties. Upon completion of this 3-year fellowship, she was offered a faculty position as an Assistant Professor and Medical Director of the Young Mother’s Clinic (YMC), part of the Colorado Adolescent Maternity Program (CAMP), which had been founded by her mentor, Dr. Catherine Stevens-Simon, in the mid-1990’s.

In this unique multidisciplinary clinical setting, she forged collaborations with the Departments of Ob-Gyn, Psychiatry and the Prevention Research Center (Dr. David Olds-Nurse Family Partnership) to provide comprehensive medical care to underprivileged teen mothers and their children. As a result of this collaboration, CAMP received a generous $1 million grant from the Marsico Family Foundation in 2008.

With this funding, a formal group care program was implemented and behavioral and other healthcare services expanded dramatically. CAMP’s multidisciplinary team grew to include a full-time case manager, social worker, a nutritionist, two mid-wives, four pediatric and family nurse practitioners, a psychologist, and a part-time child psychiatrist. Dr. Kabir and her Ob-Gyn colleague, Dr. Stephen Scott, both similarly passionate about advocating for vulnerable populations, health equity and the integration of behavioral health, co-led this unique and collaborative clinical model, which functioned as a one-stop “medical home” for under-resourced and primarily minority teen parents and their children.

CAMP’s group care model was inspired by Centering Pregnancy and Centering Parenting (Centering Healthcare Institute) founded by Sharon Rising in the 1990’s, a nursing school classmate, midwife, and lifelong friend of Dr. Kabir’s mother. This facilitated group care model provides education and supports peer interaction among pregnant patients at biweekly intervals. Following their deliveries, mothers continue facilitated group care with their infants, receiving education, sharing experiences, and forging social bonds with other new moms. In The Young Mother’s Clinic, Dr. Kabir and her team observed that teen mothers who were reluctant to breastfeed were more likely to continue, if peers within their group were breastfeeding successfully. They also noted the positive impact that forging connections and reducing isolation had on maternal mental health and subsequently, infant wellbeing.

During her 8 year tenure in the Young Mother’s Clinic, Dr. Kabir’s clinical research and publications focused on postpartum depression (PPD) screening for young mothers. Her team’s published research added to the emerging evidence at the time that supported the feasibility and utility of screening for PPD in a pediatric setting, during a child’s first year of life.  Since that time, maternal PPD screening has become more universally embedded into pediatric preventive visits.  Further, her research on validating a brief 3-question version of the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Screen (EPDS) led to an invitation to participate on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) task force on maternal perinatal health in 2011. Here, a statewide perinatal depression screening guideline was developed, supporting the use of this brief 3-question screen, and published in 2013. Numerous research publications since have cited both of these studies.

Following her successful directorship of The Young Mother’s Clinic, Dr. Kabir transitioned to Kaiser, where she provided general pediatric and teen care. There, she quickly developed a following of patients with ADHD, autism, and other mental health diagnoses, as her expertise in these areas became widely recognized. During this time, she also became a physician advocate, participating on Kaiser’s wellness and physician burn-out committees, training in “Connect the Docs” (an empathy training workshop that provided peer support for physicians), and attending numerous medical conferences on employee wellness, integrative health, and integrative psychiatry. It was during this period that Dr. Kabir was invited to join Mental Health Colorado,  attending legislative workshops on Denver’s Capital Hill, and expanding the reach of her advocacy work by working alongside public policy makers.

In 2019, Dr. Kabir started her own telemedicine practice in Denver, a year in advance of the COVID pandemic, focusing on children and teens with mental health and neurodevelopmental concerns, providing evaluations, medical treatment, patient advocacy, and other supports for her families.  She also partnered with an outreach organization during this period, providing telehealth services to homeless adults in Denver, meeting them where they were at literally-on the street-via virtual visits.  Many patients she met had just been released from incarceration where they had received medical and mental health care. Upon their release, however, they suddenly found themselves without housing or access to health care.  During this time, Dr. Kabir became acutely aware of their mental health needs and worked tirelessly to advocate for and facilitate their access to this care.

Dr. Kabir has opened a new practice in Vienna, Virginia, with a focus on family medical care, mom-baby care, mental health care, and after-hours minor illness care.  She is a long-time patient advocate and expert at navigating the multiple medical disciplines and other systems (ie, educational, legal) that often intersect when providing care for children with complex medical and/or mental health care needs.   She offers in-person or virtual visits within the privacy of her home office and for local families, within the comfort of their home. After-hours care is provided virtually, though in-home visits may be provided on a case-by-case basis.