171 Ashley Ave.
Charleston, SC 29425
843-792-1414
800-424-MUSC
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May 2006
Letter From Our Chair
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L. Lyndon Key, MD
Professor and Chairman
Department of Pediatrics |
Dear Faculty, Staff, and Friends,
We have recently begun to work together to establish a family-friendly and, more importantly, a family-centered focus for our
patients and their families. Family-centered care is not just a program change. It is a cultural change. Family-centered care
empowers families by providing them the opportunity to work with us to diagnose, treat and cure their children.
The key to the program is respect. For years, medical care has given prescriptions and dictated orders. While this is still important, we're now
adding to the mixture a role for the family, a chance to understand and help direct the care they want for their children. This means doctors,
nurses and therapists ask what a child's family thinks needs to be done, how it should be done, and what could be improved. This means moving
out of the halls and into the room. This means listening and learning from the parents what their child needs, does, and wants.
Though relatively new, this movement has already proven to be effective, enhancing hospital safety and efficiency.
It's been very exciting to see the entire hospital staff and its leadership embrace this concept. The best doctors, nurses and staff have always
practiced it, but now it's becoming a cultural expectation. I look at this as an advance and improvement similar to allowing parents to stay
with their children in the hospital: Within the next few years, this new idea will help to treat and cure children.
I am very excited about the roles of John Sanders, Sandra Oberman and Dr. Carol Dobos, who have put together this effort establishing a Family
Advisory Committee and a Family-Centered Care Advisory Committee.
Sincerely,
L. Lyndon Key, MD
Chair, Department of Pediatrics
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