June 20, 2017

Just before Father’s Day, 14-year-old Gage Lipscomb received a gift from his father like no other – a kidney.

On June 14, Dr. Richard Link, medical director of living donor kidney transplant at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, removed David Lipscomb’s left kidney and released it to the transplant team at Texas Children’s Hospital.

During a six-hour procedure, Dr. Christine O’Mahony, surgical director of kidney transplantation at Texas Children’s Hospital, transplanted Lipscomb’s kidney into Gage, the youngest boy of 10 siblings.

Gage was diagnosed with solitary kidney as a baby and was placed on medication following the removal of his right kidney at a young age. For many years, Gage experienced a seemingly typical childhood, excelling in academics and devoting his free time to playing soccer, baseball and basketball. But recently, his health started to decline.

“He was not yet on dialysis, but if he didn’t get a kidney transplant soon, he would have had to have gone on dialysis,” O’Mahony said.

So Gage’s dad stepped up and became his donor.

Early Wednesday morning while the teen was being prepped for surgery at Texas Children’s, his dad was in a nearby operating room at St. Luke’s having laparoscopic surgery – a minimally invasive operation – to remove his kidney.

“The two hospitals are attached,” said O’Mahony. “Dr. Link, the urologist who took out the kidney in David, started around 8 a.m. in the morning.”

The timing of the two events is important.

“We want to minimize the time between the kidney coming out of the donor and implanting it into the patient. I walked over to St. Luke’s to help take out David’s kidney with Dr. Link. The kidney still had blood in it so we had to flush the blood out,” O’Mahony said.

Then, she said, “We literally packed it up in a cooler so it stays cold and walked back to Texas Children’s and unpacked it” and “sewed” David’s kidney inside of Gage.

The father and son are doing well and spent a very special Father’s Day recovering and giving thanks for the opportunity to undergo this life-altering operation.

“I’m glad you are my dad,” Gage told his father during one of their hospital room visits. “Thanks.”

David said giving Gage his kidney was the least he could do and that knowing his son is going to be OK is the best Father’s Day gift he could ever have.

To read and watch news coverage of the living donor transplant, click any of the links below. For more information on Texas Children’s Transplant Services click here.

Just before Father’s Day, dad donates kidney to 1 of 10 children (CBSNews.com)
ABC World News Tonight Facebook post
Dad’s priceless gift to son (Houston Chronicle)
Father donates kidney, saves 14-year-old son’s life (CBS 11 KHOU)
Father donates kidney to 14-year-old son who had kidney removed (ABC 13 KTRK)

June 13, 2017

Lynlee Boemer, a miracle baby who underwent fetal surgery performed at Texas Children’s Fetal Center to remove a large tumor (Sacrococcygeal Teratoma) growing from her spine, celebrated her first birthday on June 6.

Last week, Jeff and Margaret Boemer were at Texas Children’s for their daughter’s follow-up clinic appointment with Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, co-director of the Fetal Center. Since their daughter’s surgery, Lynlee is meeting all of her milestones and is very active. She loves to crawl, pull up to stand and has several favorite words she likes to say like, “hi, bye-bye and Mama and Da-Da.”

“She has been in physical therapy, and thankfully, we have been able to take a break from that since she is doing so well,” said Lynlee’s mom Margaret Boemer. “She’s pulling up and almost walking. But we’re also seeing other doctors to check for GI and urology type issues. But other than that, she is doing really, really well.”

Boemer says one of the biggest blessings of sharing Lynlee’s story has been that other women pregnant with babies who have the same diagnosis as Lynlee are reaching out to her via social media, and she is able to give them hope and often refers them to Texas Children’s Fetal Center.

Boemer was 23 weeks and 5 days pregnant with her daughter Lynlee when she underwent emergency fetal surgery to remove the baby’s Sacrococcygeal Teratoma (SCT), a large vascular mass. Occurring in only 1 in 40,000 pregnancies, Lynlee’s SCT was robbing her blood supply and would eventually cause heart failure.

Lynlee had a 50/50 chance of survival. Olutoye and a surgical team worked for approximately five hours to remove the tumor growing from the baby’s tailbone, which was almost larger than the baby herself.

During the surgery, Lynlee’s heart stopped and had to be re-started and she was also given a blood transfusion. Surgeons made an incision in Margaret’s uterus and pulled out the baby from her legs to her torso so they could remove the tumor. Once the incision was closed, Lynlee was placed back inside of her mother and Margaret’s uterus was sewn shut and she was on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy. Surgeons were able to remove about 90 percent of the tumor, but as the pregnancy progressed, the tumor began to grow again.

Margaret was 36 weeks pregnant when Lynlee Hope was born for the second time via C-section on June 6, 2016 weighing 5 lbs., 5 oz. Lynlee was taken to the level 3 NICU for an evaluation, but was doing so well she was transferred to the level 2 nursery. At 8 days old, Lynlee underwent a second surgery to remove the rest of the tumor from her tailbone including some that had grown inside of her body.

Olutoye removed the remaining SCT tissue and Lynlee recovered wonderfully in the NICU and was able to go home just weeks after her surgery.

The family, from Lewisville, Texas, is now enjoying life at home as a family of five and they come to Texas Children’s for check-ups as Lynlee grows.

“We’re thankful that we gave her a chance at life,” Boemer said. “And we’re very grateful for all that the doctors at Texas Children’s have done to give her that life and all the wonderful care that they gave me and Lynlee while we were here.”

Seventeen-year-old Angelica Aulbaugh has been swimming since she was 4 years old. Her high level of training for a competitive team conditioned her to be tough, but nearly two years ago she noticed her left hand was swelling to an abnormal size.

Most often, it would swell after she swam a long distance or ate salty foods. Eventually, however, Angelica’s swelling episodes grew more and more frequent and her hand began to throb when she was exercising. Her mom, Pam, an emergency room nurse, grew concerned and sought answers from the medical community. After talking to several physicians, her search led her and her daughter to Texas Children’s Hospital, specifically to Dr. Chris Pederson, a pediatric plastic surgeon with expertise in microvascular hand surgery.

During his first visit with Angelica, Pederson asked the teenager to raise her arm above her head. As he observed, the pieces started coming together, and following a battery of tests, Pederson diagnosed Angelica with an extremely atypical case of thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition that typically presents closer to the clavicle and occurs when blood vessels or nerves are compressed.

In Angelica’s case, her axillary vein, a major vein in her arm that carries blood to her heart was being occluded 70 to 80 percent, putting her at very high risk for a blood clot. To relieve the constriction, Angelica underwent surgery in November. Shortly after the procedure, her hand began to look and feel normal again.

“Dr. Pederson potentially saved my life and opened the door to the possibilities of my future dreams,” Angelica said. “He not only listened to me, but he fought for my life and my health.”

After being sidelined for more than a year, Angelica is back in the pool doing what she loves. She made it to the final two swim meets of the season and started playing water polo, too. Recently, Angelica visited Pederson for a follow-up appointment and he noted afterwards, “She’s perfect.”

Expertise in hand problems, injuries and abnormalities

Pederson is one of three hand specialists at Texas Children’s Hospital who can treat the most common hand problems like fingers, deep cuts, carpal tunnel, and scars to the more complex cases like contractures, extra digits, tendon injuries and other hand traumas. The specialists, all of whom are surgeons, also provide treatment of congenital hand and upper-extremity anomalies, as well as those as a result of infection trauma and tumors.

“This is a group that is capable of taking care of everything from the most basic hand injuries to the most complex problems involving nerves and microvascular surgery,” said Dr. Larry Hollier, associate surgeon-in-chief for clinical affairs and chief of plastic surgery at Texas Children’s. “Very few hospitals in the world have surgeons such as these focused completely on pediatric hand problems.”

Hollier added that Pederson is one of the most experienced and best known hand surgeons practicing in the United States. “I cannot think of anyone more capable of growing and developing the hand and upper extremity team we are developing at Texas Children’s Hospital,” he said.

Chief of Orthopedics Dr. John Dormans said Pederson has unified and solidified Texas Children’s complimentary, multidisciplinary pediatric hand and upper extremity program and team, which includes Drs. Edward Reece and Bryce Bell. “We are so fortunate to have these super-sub-specialists who focus on rare and difficult pediatric conditions,” he said.

For more information about the hospital’s hand services, click here. To read a first person account of Angelica’s experience at Texas Children’s Hospital, read her post on the Texas Children’s Blog here.

May 30, 2017

Peyton Richardson was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in January 2015. For the next two years, she and her doctors at Texas Children’s Cancer Center worked together to combat her disease. On May 15, they won their fight and Peyton rang the end-of-treatment bell in front of a crowd of friends, family and clinical staff in the Cancer Center’s infusion area.

During an emotional speech, Peyton thanked everyone for the help they gave her along the way.

“Without my cancer journey, I would not have met some of these amazing people,” she said through tears. “I love everyone here so much. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Peyton’s primary doctor at the Cancer Center, Dr. ZoAnn Dryer, said Peyton’s bell ringing signifies the completion of two and a half long, hard years of treatment.

“This is it,” Dryer said. “From here on out, it’s just blood counts and check-ups.”

Carrie Richardson, Peyton’s mom, said the fact that her daughter is cancer free hasn’t really hit her because her family has been on the road to recovery for so long.

“It’s overwhelming,” she said. “We are just so thankful for everything that Texas Children’s has done for us.”

Roger Richardson, Peyton’s dad, expressed his appreciation as well.

“I’m very happy,” he said. “I’m so glad Peyton is here and has gotten to this point.”

To read more about Peyton’s path to recovery, including her being chosen to ride on a float at the 127th Rose Parade for Northwestern Mutual, and her writing and recording a song with Dr. Jennifer Arnold, click here and here.

An important milestone was recently reached at Texas Children’s Hospital that has one 17-year-old extremely grateful.

Joseph McCullough received a new liver on May 21, giving him a chance at a new life after battling primary sclerosing cholangitis, a life-threatening disease that causes end-stage liver disease. McCullough’s transplant was the 1,500th transplant performed by the Texas Children’s Transplant Services team.

“That’s fascinating,” Joseph said about being the 1,500th transplant recipient. “That’s unbelievable that I’m that number.”

Texas Children’s Surgeon-In-Chief Dr. Charles D. Fraser said the milestone – and the immeasurable service to children and families that it represents – is due to the hard work of the entire Transplant Services department and the multitude of other departments that support Transplant Services.

“I would like especially to thank to Dr. John Goss, medical director of Transplant Services and surgical director of the Liver Transplant Program at Texas Children’s, for providing strong leadership for the program and all of the medical and surgical directors of Transplant for their guidance, resilience in growing their programs and excellence in every aspect of patient care,” Fraser said. “Under their leadership, we have become not only one of the busiest pediatric transplant programs but also one of the best.”

Transplantation began at Texas Children’s in 1984 with a pediatric heart transplant that was performed by Dr. Denton Cooley. Since that time, liver, kidney and lung have been added and countless lives have been saved.

Just last year, 86 organ transplants were performed at Texas Children’s – 32 kidney transplants, 25 heart transplants, 21 liver transplants and 8 lung transplants – making Texas Children’s one of the most active pediatric transplant program in the nation, per the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

Behind the statistics, there’s an exceptionally experienced and well-coordinated transplant program that draws on numerous medical, surgical and support specialties, and transplant coordinators who play an essential role in connecting recipients with prospective donors.

“I believe our success is a testimony to the skill and commitment of our multidisciplinary team,” Goss said. “Our team offers an interdisciplinary approach to all aspects of the transplant process, from initial referral to hospitalization and outpatient management. We also work closely with patients, families and referring physicians to help make the evaluation process as convenient and efficient as possible.”

Goss added that transplants are possible only because of the generous and selfless decisions made by donors and donor families. Without them, people like Joseph would run out of options.

“I can’t wait to play basketball again,” said the teenager, adding that anyone who can should become an organ donor. “I can’t wait to have a full day of school again as crazy as that sounds.”

Watch ABC-13’s news story about Joseph and click here to watch a video about Texas Children’s Transplant Program. Below are the stories of two more lives that have recently been touched by Texas Children’s Transplant team as well as information on how to become an organ donor.

Karla Alonzo
When Karla Alonzo was 13-years-old, she was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, the most common disease of the heart muscle which causes it to enlarge and not pump blood as well as a healthy heart can. In and out of the hospital in her hometown of Port Arthur for years, Karla was referred to Texas Children’s Hospital when she started to feel extremely weak, couldn’t walk up the stairs and was always thirsty. First, doctors started Karla on medication to help improve the condition, but it was not as successful as they hoped. Next, Karla was implanted with the HeartWare HVAD, which kept her going for a while. Recently, she got what she really needed – a heart transplant. Performed by Dr. Iki Adachi, the transplant went well. Karla has been discharged from the hospital and is at home continuing to recover.

Tenley Kennedy
One-year-old Tenley Kennedy was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a congenital heart defect that affects normal blood flow through the heart. As a result of her disease, Tenley has spent most of her life at Texas Children’s Hospital waiting for a heart transplant. On May 13, her day finally came. Performed by Dr. Carlos Mery, Tenley received a heart transplant. The little girl is still in the hospital recovering but should be able to go home very soon. Click here to watch KPRC’s story about Tenley.

To register to become an organ donor, click here.

May 23, 2017

More than 300 members of the Texas Children’s Hospital Department of Surgery attended the eighth annual Edmond T. Gonzales, Jr., Surgical Research Day on May 19. The event provided a forum for researchers across the department to showcase their work.

“As the research enterprise within the Department of Surgery grows, this day, where we highlight the research being conducted in the department, is more important than ever,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr., surgeon-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital. “The new research discoveries coming from academic surgeons and scientists at Texas Children’s Hospital are changing the future of health care.”

This year 159 abstracts were submitted for review. Eleven of these abstracts were chosen for oral presentations on Surgical Research Day and 130 were accepted for poster presentations. This year eight students vied for the Best Presentation award and three faculty members were chosen to present their research.

The 2016 keynote speaker was Dr. Michael Longaker, the Deane P. and Louise Mitchell Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Salter and Packard Children’s Hospital. He is a pediatric plastic surgeon who also directs Stanford Medical School’s Program in Regenerative Medicine and Children’s Surgical Research, and co-directs the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

Laura Laux Higgins, director of special projects in the Department of Surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital, gave an ethics presentation on ethical violations in research. Higgins worked at leading legal firms as a litigator and spent several years at a top management consulting firm before joining Texas Children’s.

Awards presented at the event were the Samuel Stal Research Award for outstanding research by a resident or fellow, the Research Mentor Award, and Best Oral Presentation and Best Poster Presentation.

  • The Samuel Stal Research Award was presented to Dr. Luis De Leon, a post-doctoral research fellow in Congenital Heart Surgery. The award is named after Dr. Samuel Stal, former chief of Plastic Surgery at Texas Children’s.
  • Congenital Heart Surgeon Dr. Carlos Mery was honored with the Research Mentor Award. The award is given on an annual basis to honor a Department of Surgery faculty member who serves as a research mentor through career development, professional guidance or cultivation of research interests.
  • Best Oral Presentation award was given to Dr. James Fisher who is in the first year of his fetal surgery fellowship. He presented his work on the Development and Validation of a Fetal 3-D Surgical Simulator: Implications for Minimally Invasive In-Utero Gastroschisis Repair.
  • Best Poster award was given to researcher Andrew Lee from Anesthesiology for a poster on Use of the Baxter Faces (BARF) Scale to Measure the Severity of Nausea in Spanish Speaking Children.

Recipients of the 2017 Surgical Seed Grant Awards were announced as the grand finale of Texas Children’s Hospital Surgical Research Day. This grant program, funded by the Department of Surgery, allows surgery researchers to generate the preliminary data necessary for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications and other extramural funding. Click here to find out who received a seed grant.

The Surgical Research Day Planning Committee included Dr. Jed Nuchtern (chair), Melinda Mathis (co-chair), Dr. Swathi Balaji, Shon Bower, Kathy Carberry, Dr. Jennifer Dietrich, Matthew Girotto, Laura Laux Higgins, Dr. Chester Koh, Dr. Lingkun Kong, Dr. Sandi Lam, Liz McCullum, Anissa Quiroz, Angie Rangel, Dr. Scott Rosenfeld, Stacy Staples and Veronica Victorian.

Three distinguished faculty members from Texas Children’s Hospital Department of Surgery have been given the Master Clinician Award for Excellence in Patient Care from Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Ellen Friedman, Dr. Edmond Gonzales Jr., and Dr. David Wesson are among the recipients of this award in 2017.

“Drs. Friedman, Gonzales and Wesson are accomplished academic surgeons who exemplify the ideals of the Master Clinician award,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr., Texas Children’s surgeon-in-chief. “Each of these surgeons lead in their clinical specialties through excellent patient care. They are each model surgeon educators as well.”

The Master Clinician Award is Baylor’s highest institution-wide honor for faculty contributions to patient care. To be considered for the award, the faculty member must be an associate or full professor and have 15 or more years of clinical service as Baylor faculty. Consideration is given to the physician’s enduring contributions to clinical excellence, expertise in patient care as recognized locally, regionally or nationally, professionalism and communication, leadership, mentoring, clinical innovation, and continuous service to the Baylor community.

Friedman is a pediatric otolaryngologist at Texas Children’s and a professor of otolaryngology and the director of the Center for Professionalism in Medicine at Baylor. She previously served as chief of Otolaryngology at Texas Children’s and held the Bobby Alford Endowed Chair in Pediatric Otolaryngology at Baylor for 24 years from 1991 until 2014.

Friedman is a respected leader in the field of otolaryngology serving at a national level in many professional societies. She was the first woman to be president of the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology (ASPO), and the American Broncho-Esophagological Association (ABEA) renamed a national award for Friedman. The Ellen M. Friedman Award for Excellence in Foreign Body Management is given for excellence in innovation, skill and education in the management of aero-digestive foreign bodies.

Gonzales is a pediatric urologist at Texas Children’s and a professor of Urology at Baylor. He served as chief of Pediatric Urology at Texas Children’s from 1974 until 2012. He was named Chief of Surgery serving from 1988 to 2012 and was the hospital’s first Surgeon-in-Chief guiding surgical efforts from 2008 to 2010. He was then named Director of Surgery at West Campus from 2010 until 2014. In his nearly 40 years at Texas Children’s, Gonzales has established a legacy of excellence for which the hospital and Baylor College of Medicine honored him by creating The Edmond T. Gonzales, Jr., MD, Chair in Pediatric Urology which he held from 2004 until 2012.

Within the field of urology, Gonzales has been a leader in the establishment and expansion of pediatric urology fellowship programs across the country. As a result of his work, pediatric urology fellowship positions have more than quadrupled since the early 1980s. In 2012, he was the recipient of the Urology Medal, the highest accolade bestowed by the Urology Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics, because of his pioneering work in pediatric urology and education. In 2001, the Scott Department of Urology at Baylor College of Medicine honored Dr. Gonzales with the F. Brantley Scott, Jr., Award for Innovation and Creativity in Urology.

Wesson is associate surgeon-in-chief for academic affairs at Texas Children’s and professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at Baylor. He also serves as interim surgeon-in-chief at Children’s Hospital of San Antonio. Wesson served as chief of Pediatric Surgery at Texas Children’s from 1997 to 2012. He led the efforts to grow and obtain Level I accreditation for the Texas Children’s Trauma Center and served as its director from 2007-2014. Dr. Wesson was also instrumental in building other Texas Children’s programs such as the Fetal Center, bariatric surgery and surgical oncology. At Baylor, Dr. Wesson is director of Faculty Education and Development for the Department of Surgery. He was also interim chair of the DeBakey Department of Surgery from 2011 to 2012.

Wesson is well known internationally for participating in some of the earliest definitive studies on the non-operative treatment of solid organ injuries in children. His research brought about a new method of treating splenic trauma non-operatively, and resulted in this protocol becoming the standard of care not only for children but also for all age groups. Wesson received the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma Millennium Commitment Award in 2000 and the Safe Kids Canada Founder Award in 2006. As a member of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, Wesson is a survey team member for Trauma Center designation. He is a founding member of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention, and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Trauma.

All three surgeons receiving the Master Clinician Award have also received the Distinguished Surgeon Award from Texas Children’s Hospital.