March 10, 2015

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The Department of Surgery’s Physician Assistant Fellowship Program recently graduated its inaugural class of four fellows and welcomed its second class of six fellows in what the Association of Postgraduate Physician Assistant Programs has called an “innovative fellowship program.”

The only program of its kind in the United States for pediatric surgical services, the fellowship is a 12-month didactic and clinical program designed to extensively train physician assistants in all areas of pediatric surgery. After completing nine rotations in various surgical areas and one month in research, the fellows select two electives for which they want to receive additional training.

The inaugural class of four physician assistants – Lesley Davies, Jackie Guarino, Caitlin Justus, and Cassie Mueller – accepted positions at Texas Children’s Hospital. Davies is with Plastic Surgery and Guarino is with Urology. Mueller works in Trauma and Justus works with the surgical hospitalists at West Campus.

The Department of Surgery received 55 applications for the 2015 term, with 27 of those from outside Texas. Six fellows were chosen. They and their home states are: Chelsea Hartwig (Illinois), Brittney Knudson (Montana), Sara Mullinax (Georgia), Thian Nguyen (Texas), Abby Young (South Carolina) and Kelly Wiseman (Ohio).

“The Department of Surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital has taken a leadership role nationally in physician assistant fellowships, and we have received inquiries from other hospitals that want to establish programs and model their programs after ours,” said Dr. Larry Hollier, chief of Plastic Surgery and medical director of the Physician Assistant Fellowship Program.

Additional leaders of the fellowship program are: Ryan Krasnosky, director of the program; Kristen Daniels, academic director; and Jordan McAndrews, fellowship coordinator.

Applications for the 2016 fellowship program are now open. Candidates can apply online at Texas Children’s Hospital’s employment page.

To hear from members of the first Physician Assistant Fellowship Program class, read the following Texas Children’s blog posts:

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By Dr. Steven Abrams

I arrived at Texas Children’s Hospital from Ohio as a newly minted fellow in neonatology in the summer of 1985. At the time, Texas Children’s was one building, now called “Abercrombie,” and was a seven story hospital with a 24-bed Level 3 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and another 50 or so Level 2 NICU beds in three separate nurseries. I began research on bone health in infants at the Children’s Nutrition Research Center (CNRC), then housed on a few floors of what is called the Medical Towers building on Fannin Street.

I stayed at Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine for nearly 30 years, except for a brief sojourn in the Washington, D.C. area in the late 1980s for research training at the National Institutes of Health. I returned to Texas Children’s and Baylor as a faculty member in 1991.

Now, it is time to embark on a new and exciting opportunity. Next month, I will be the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. This is a new medical school and a new Department of Pediatrics with its primary pediatric teaching hospital being Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas. Both challenges and opportunities abound, and I am grateful for them and for the opportunity to continue to serve the children of Texas in this unique way.

Leaving after three decades is not easy and I wanted to say goodbye with this blog post. I leave Houston with many fond memories of my experiences at Texas Children’s and the incredible importance of Texas Children’s to the city of Houston.

I met my late wife Judy in Houston at Congregation Emanu El where she served as a junior assistant Rabbi. We shared more than two-and-a-half decades together being part of the Houston community, and ultimately I said goodbye to her here. She always told me and our three children to do what we are supposed to do with our lives, and that the pathway would be clear forward. She and I were very proud of being part of Texas Children’s and having our children expertly cared for here.

The most remarkable part of being a faculty member at Texas Children’s is seeing what we can do for children by relying upon the strengths of the people who work here. I was recruited to Texas Children’s by the incredible Dr. Arnold J. Rudolph. Dr. Rudolph was a legendary leader of our field for many years. He taught us to always focus on doing what we knew was the right thing, which was not necessarily the easiest thing, for our young patients, every time, every day. He focused on families and the dynamics of an infant within a family. He never stopped teaching even into his last years of life. His teaching showed us what pediatrics education was about and he made it clear that education should go along with patient care and research as our passions as pediatricians.

Through most of my time here, our department chair was Dr. Ralph Feigin. We all have Dr. Feigin stories, but here is my personal favorite. After the tsunami hit Sri Lanka in late 2004, I wanted to lead a team of neonatologists and staff members (nurses, respiratory therapists and others) to go there and help them rebuild their NICUs. I had identified medical and research connections in Sri Lanka who were anxious for us to make such a trip. I emailed Dr. Feigin with my plan to lead a 10 person team from Texas Children’s to Sri Lanka. I emailed him at 6:30 a.m. At 6:45 in the morning, he called me at home to tell me it was a great idea and by 11 a.m., he met with the Texas Children’s Hospital Board of Directors and the money was approved. So much for months of haggling! We went to Sri Lanka and hopefully accomplished something in that difficult setting. Dr. Feigin’s approach was to quickly and decisively take action on behalf of children everyone and he taught by example every day.

Other memorable moments include waking up one Sunday in 1998 to be told to head in on-call to Texas Children’s for the delivery of octuplets. That was quite a delivery and experience taking care of them! Also, I am proud to watch the incredible work Texas Children’s has done internationally in many settings and the Texas Children’s unending support for the rights of children throughout the world, especially those in Africa and Latin America. I hope that my advocacy for new forms of therapy for children with liver disease, for good nutrition for children, and for health care for newborns throughout the world can be a legacy I’ve provided to the Texas Children’s community that will continue forward.

I want to express my tremendous appreciation to our department chair, Dr. Mark W. Kline, and many others at Texas Children’s and Baylor including Dr. Dennis Bier and Dr. Steven Welty, my section heads at the CNRC and Neonatology, respectively, for their support over the years and their assistance in helping me make a smooth transition to Dell Medical School.

I also want to express my appreciation to the Baylor and Texas Children’s public relations departments for their assistance in teaching me how to do a better job of advocating for children in the media and with the public. These are skills I will need in my new position.

In the end, I am saddened to leave the friend I call Texas Children’s behind, but happy to be able to transmit the skills and values I have learned here over the last 30 years to help develop an outstanding new Department of Pediatrics.

Don’t be strangers if you come to Austin! I hear they have decent barbecue there.

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Texas Children’s Hospital is proud to announce Fundacíon Carlos Slim of Mexico as the recipient of the 2015 International Recognition Award at the 25th Texas Children’s Hospital International Colloquium. The Latin American foundation is being recognized for work in global health.

The Texas Children’s Hospital International Colloquium, now in its 25th year, is a convening body for stakeholders in global health and believed to be the longest-standing international educational forum of any freestanding pediatric hospital in the United States.

“Since 1990, Texas Children’s has honored the highest echelon of leaders in pediatrics, maternal and community health,” said Michael T. Walsh, Jr., Director of Texas Children’s Global Health Initiative. “The award recognizes transformational contributions to patient care, education, research and outreach with a notable focus on addressing the needs of underserved populations. This year, the International Colloquium Curriculum Committee proudly selected Fundacíon Carlos Slim, the first institution to receive this honor.”

The close alignment of the Fundación Carlos Slim mission to that of Texas Children’s establishes an ideal platform for the sharing of new ideas, expertise, and solutions targeting transformational improvements in maternal and child health in the Americas and beyond.

“Fundación Carlos Slim is honored to receive this recognition from Texas Children’s Hospital,” said Dr. Roberto Tapia-Conyer, Chief Executive Officer of Fundacíon Carlos Slim. “Our foundation shares a common vision with Texas Children’s for alleviation of poverty and health disparity through a sound focus on the right solutions.”

With an extensive philanthropic profile, Fundación Carlos Slim is considered to be the most significant philanthropic entity in Latin America and among the top five globally. The Fundación Carlos Slim and its high impact, social programs, focused on the most vulnerable populations, has directly benefited more than 29.7 million persons and provided access to high quality medical care, equipment and technology, fostering preventative health care, promoting professional development and training and encouraging research and solutions addressing the most significant health problems facing underserved populations in Mexico and Central America.

The 2015 Texas Children’s Hospital’s International Colloquium is taking place March 9-11, 2015 at the BioScience Research Collaborative.

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Texas Children’s Hospital announced on February 26 a recognition of Chevron Corporation’s long-term support of the hospital’s global health programs with the dedication of “The Chevron Bridge,” the walkway linking the Abercrombie Building and the Feigin Center.

Since 2011, Chevron has invested more than $16 million in Texas Children’s Hospital programs in Africa and Latin America. That funding includes the corporation’s most recent announcement of $5 million to support the Angola Sickle Cell Initiative over the next five years.

“We value the opportunity to support remarkable doctors who provide critical day- to-day pediatric and maternal health care while training in-country care givers to help build a legacy of greater health expertise,” said Ali Moshiri, president of Chevron Africa and Latin America Exploration and Production Company.

Chevron, Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine and the Angolan Ministry of Health partnered four years ago to establish the Angola Sickle Cell Initiative, the first program of its kind in the country. Angola has one of the world’s highest rates of the genetic blood disease. More than 10,000 babies are born with sickle cell each year.

To watch a video about the Angola Sickle Cell Initiative click here.

“For these babies, Chevron’s support is the difference between life and death,” said Dr. Mark W. Kline, physician-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital and founder of the Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s Hospital. “Without the sickle cell program, they would have been sick at an early age and very likely would have died before reaching age of five.”

The program, led by Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers, tests newborn babies, provides treatment, patient and family consultation, and helps train Angolan health care professionals. Through the program more than 96,000 babies have been tested for sickle cell, and the program has trained more than 500 Angolan nurses, lab technicians and social workers.

The company’s funding also has helped expand Texas Children’s Global Health Corps, which recruits and trains American-trained pediatricians and family doctors for long-term assignments in Africa in pursuit of a two-part mission: 1. expanding access to lifesaving care and treatment for some of the world’s poorest and least fortunate children, and 2. training local health professionals to build capacity for pediatric health care that currently does not exist.

Chevron’s contributions helped support the Global Health Corps assignments in Liberia and new programs are being evaluated for Morocco and Argentina.

In 2014, Chevron, Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine also partnered to create a health program in a remote region of Colombia. The program called SAIL focuses on caring for children under age five and expectant mothers with the goal of reversing the high child and maternal morbidity and mortality rate. Chevron’s funding supports doctors who treat families in the Wayúu indigenous community of the Riohacha and Manaure Municipality in La Guajira state where hospitals and clinics are difficult to reach and food security is an issue.

“We are grateful for Chevron’s continued support, which has helped enormously in our programs to fight devastating diseases and improve child and maternal health care,” said Kline. “The relationship has evolved and I imagine it will evolve further. What is exciting to me is that our partnership represents several different projects on two continents serving thousands of children and families in need. I look forward to where we will be working together next.”

Watch the newest “I Am Texas Children’s” video featuring employee Tiffany Strawn in Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus – Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

“I enjoy working at Texas Children’s West Campus and seeing the progress children have made in physical therapy,” Strawn said. “This is probably the best place to work where everybody brings different approaches to sports medicine and physical therapy.”

Check out Strawn’s video, and find out how you and your coworkers can be featured in the “I Am Texas Children’s” section on Connect.

March 3, 2015

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Getting a visitor while you are in the hospital is always a treat, but having a member of the Houston Texans stop by is a dream come true for many patients at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Some of the team’s football players, along with their mascot, Toro, stopped by the hospital on February 25 to visit with patients and officially announce their seven-year partnership with us. Click here to watch a video of that visit.

Beginning Wednesday, April 1, Texas Children’s Hospital will be the Official Children’s Hospital of the Houston Texans. Through the partnership, the Texans look forward to helping improve the health and wellness of Houston area children through community engagement, education, sports performance and the tools necessary to make healthy choices throughout their lives.

“We want to see all Houston kids grow healthier and stronger,” said Houston Texans President Jamey Rootes. “We feel it’s our responsibility to give every child access to the tools to understand the importance of healthy choices and the benefits of physical activity, and this partnership with the world-class team at Texas Children’s will give us that opportunity. We’re looking forward to working together.”

Texas Children’s is a natural fit with the Texans because of both organizations’ emphasis on community engagement and educating Houston’s youth about nutrition and the importance of being active.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Houston Texans,” said President and CEO of Texas Children’s Hospital Mark A. Wallace. “Both of our organizations want to impact our community in a powerful, positive way. Texas Children’s is helping children lead healthier, more productive lives, and this exciting collaboration will expand our reach to even more families in Houston.”

The Houston Texans and Texas Children’s will appear as partners for the first time at the Houston Texans Kids Triathlon, which will take place on April 19. Registration for the event is now open.

In addition to the Houston Texans Kids Triathlon, Texas Children’s will be the official Texans Play 60 Health Care Partner. The partnership will include the Texans Play 60 Challenge and the Texans Play 60 Character Camp. Texas Children’s will also be the presenting sponsor of the Play 60 Game.

Furthermore, Texas Children’s will be the presenting sponsor of the TORO’s Kids 1K at the Houston Texans Running of the Bulls presented by HEB, the “TORO’s Training Table” school program and the Texans Jr. Cheerleader programs.

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Texas Children’s Hospital began with a promise more than six decades ago. It was a promise to the community that we would be here to take care of their children – all of them, regardless of ability to pay – for many years to come. Today that promise is even stronger and more evident and has broadened to include the women who now come to us for care.

It stands to reason that Texas Children’s next chapter would be ushered in with a bold capital campaign that will help ensure we can respond to the growing need for care. Texas Children’s has launched Promise, a $475 million comprehensive campaign.

“We are so excited about the Promise campaign,” said Laura Shuford, vice president of Development. “Supporting a fundraising effort that has a goal of providing the best possible care to even more children is a cause that speaks to the heart and one that so many people can relate to.”

The Promise campaign focuses on five key initiatives:

  • CareFirst, for the expansion of our Critical Care services, ORs/PACU and Emergency Center at the Main Camp
  • Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands, our new 548,000-square-foot dedicated pediatric hospital serving the growing communities north of Houston
  • Endowed Chairs, which are a powerful tool in recruiting and retaining world-class physicians and scientists
  • Divisions and Centers of Excellence to provide ongoing support for specialty care programs and projects
  • Charity Care and hospital priorities, to help alleviate the financial burdens families take on with complex medical care and to provide flexible funds to address the hospital’s most pressing needs at any given time

Of the $475 million campaign total, $350 million of the funds raised will support the CareFirst expansion and renovation projects, scheduled for completion in 2020, and The Woodlands campus, currently under construction and scheduled for completion in 2017. These two initiatives are the hospital’s top priorities.

“This is one of the biggest challenges Texas Children’s has ever faced,” said Texas Children’s President and CEO Mark A. Wallace. “But I know we can meet the challenge head on and keep the promise we made so many years ago – and the promise we make every single day – to serve all the children and families who come to us for help.”

How you can help
You can help us spread the word about the Promise campaign and the impact it will make right here in Houston and beyond. Visit texaschildrens.org/promise and share the page with family and friends who may be interested in supporting our efforts.