October 2008
Dear faculty, Children's Hospital staff and other friends,
When you come into the Children's Hospital or its clinics, you will be treated as friend. Sometimes, it is hard to see that people are providing help when it means taking blood, splinting a leg, or cooling down a hyperthermic patient. The wonderful thing about a children's hospital is there are children. This reminds us of our responsibility of the most vulnerable part of population, those too young to take care of themselves. However, children's hospitals are not just for taking care of babies. We frequently take care of seriously injured teenagers when they have had accidental or purposeful trauma. Sometimes, this is very hard to take. People like Rosemarie Battaglia and the many nurses that move patients in and out, do procedures, and calm and provide a calming influence.
We do have many clinics that provide a wide variety of service-essentially all areas of pediatric medicine from general care to the most exotic infectious disease that is diagnosed after oversees travel. I want to thank the people who draw the blood, help to soothe the anxiety of the patients and the families. The many groups of nurse practitioners, who also very specialized, the diabetes nurses that teach how to take care of the diabetic process. It is also important to keep looking for better ways to treat these chronic diseases. We are putting a proposal for a center of academic excellence (CoEE). The millions of dollars to help to find the new cures, attract the new physicians, develop the new basic scientists can only be developed with money from the state, the university, and philanthropy.
The people are still the key to discovery, caretaking, curing, and diseases that have not been cured before. It is the team of people that still makes the difficult decisions that are the difference between life and death. It is hoped that we will continue to cure. Imagine a hundred years ago, there was no antibiotics, vaccination was working, but was primitive. We have made great strides. Kudos to all the people who are a part of this miraculous improve in care.
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Sincerely,
L. Lyndon Key, MD
Chair, Department of Pediatrics |
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