Dr. McDonald serves as president and CEO of Children’s Specialized Hospital, part of West Orange, N.J.-based RWJBarnabas Health. He joined the community hospital in 2014 as section chief of special needs pediatrics, where he led development of the first National Committee for Quality Assurance-certified medical home in New Jersey for children with special healthcare needs. He later helped open a second special needs primary care location in Hamilton, N.J. Dr. McDonald was elected president of the medical staff in 2016, appointed associate vice president and medical director of outpatient services in 2017, and served as vice president and chief medical officer until 2021. He also chaired RWJBarnabas Health’s pediatric quality efforts in 2020-21 and helped create a strategic plan aligning five pediatric hospitals to expand access for 600,000 children. Since becoming CEO of the specialized care hospital in 2021, he has overseen a $90 million strategic plan expanding outpatient access and launched Children’s Specialized ABA, a multistate joint venture using applied behavior analysis to treat autism. Under his leadership, the hospital achieved an organizationwide serious safety event rate of zero in both 2024 and 2025. Dr. McDonald is an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Biomedical and Health Sciences and chairs the Special Olympics New Jersey board of trustees.
