Dr. Russell Cross was born and raised in Texas, where he received undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering at the University of Texas.  The allure of a medical career emerged while completing course work in biomedical engineering, and he subsequently attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.  He then moved to the University of Texas Medical School at Houston for pediatric residency, which is where his fascination with pediatric cardiology was discovered.  Dr. Cross subsequently moved to Washington, DC to pursue a pediatric cardiology fellowship at Children’s National Medical Center, where he ultimately became an attending pediatric cardiologist.

During his 25-year career at Children’s National, Dr. Cross focused his work in the areas of cardiac imaging and various aspects of inpatient cardiology.  He was a valued member of the echocardiography lab (including transesophageal and fetal imaging), and ultimately became founding director of the Advanced Cardiac Imaging Program. That program started in 2004 and is now performing over 600 cardiac cross-sectional imaging studies each year.  He is proud to have participated in the training of over 20 pediatric cardiology advanced-imaging fellows, many of whom are now active in the field.  While at Children’s National, he participated in creation of one of the first pediatric interventional cardiac MRI suites in North America and collaborated with colleagues to establish NIH-funded research programs in the areas of interventional cardiac MRI and the use of MRI in post-heart transplant myocardial evaluation.  For several years, he was director for both inpatient cardiology and divisional quality improvement programs.  Through that work, he actively led advancement in areas such as education, safety, quality improvement, care delivery, and provider collaboration.  He has authored or co-authored over 60 publications in the areas of cardiac imaging, interventional cardiac MRI, and general pediatric cardiology.

Dr. Cross joined Nemours in 2023 when he moved to the Rehoboth Beach area.  He serves as Director of Delaware Outreach for the Nemours Cardiac Center, with clinical activities focused at the regional subspecialty clinic in Milford.  He also contributes to the ongoing development of the cardiac MRI program in Wilmington and is an active member of the echocardiography team.