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As a major pediatric referral center, Children's Hospital's mission is to provide the highest quality health care. It is also the hospital's mission to enhance the health and well-being of the children and families in our local community. In support of this mission, Children's strives to be the leading source of research and discovery, seeking new approaches to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of childhood diseases, as well as to educate the next generation of leaders in pediatric health care.

Teaching at Children's Hospital takes many forms, occurring at the bedside as well as in classrooms and lecture halls. Education is an ongoing process for all staff, who are at different times both teacher and student. Officially, what makes Children's a "teaching hospital" is its 100-year affiliation with Harvard Medical School, and the fact that our full-time physicians hold faculty appointments there. In addition to patient care and research responsibilities, physicians at Children's teach medical students in the classroom and on rotations, as well as the many interns, residents and fellows in postgraduate training.

Children's mission as a teaching hospital also extends to the teaching and training of nurses, social workers and other healthcare professionals.

From the website: history of Children's Hospital from 1869 to the present:

1869 Children's Hospital, Boston opens as a 20-bed facility at 9 Rutland Street in Boston's South End. Sixty-nine patients are treated during the first year.

1891 The first laboratory for the modification and production of bacteria-free milk is established.

1900 The first pediatric radiology department in the country is organized.

1903 Children's becomes a teaching hospital after formalizing its ties with Harvard Medical School.

1914 One of the first independent physical therapy departments in the country is organized.

1920 Dr. William Ladd devises procedures for correcting various congenital defects such as intestinal malformations.

1922 Dr. James L. Gamble analyzes the composition of body fluids and develops a methodology for intravenous feeding that saves the lives of thousands of infants at risk of dehydration from diarrhea.

1930 The Polio Rehabilitation and Neurology clinics are created and, with Harvard Medical School, the Cardiac and Infantile Paralysis clinics are established.

1938 The world's first successful surgical procedure to correct a congenital cardiovascular defect is performed by Dr. Robert Gross.

1946 Dr. Louis Diamond describes Rh disease, a condition resulting from incompatibility of a baby's blood with the mother's, and develops a transfusion procedure that replaces blood of a newborn affected by Rh disease.

1947 Dr. Sidney Farber is responsible for the first successful pediatric remission of acute leukemia.

1949 Dr. John F. Enders and his colleagues successfully culture the polio virus.

1954 Dr. John F. Enders and his team win the Nobel Prize for their 1949 polio work. Enders and his team also culture the measles virus.

1966 Dr. Joseph E. Murray and his team perform the nation's first operation for correction of Crouzon's syndrome, a complex craniofacial deformity.

1978 Dr. Stuart H. Orkin and his team develop new DNA techniques for the reliable prenatal diagnosis of several genetic defects that cause thalassemia, a deadly form of anemia.

1980 Children's dedicates the world's first research center for the study of cystic fibrosis.

1981 Dr. Park Gerald and his colleagues confirm the role of a defect in the X-chromosome, thought for several years to be mental retardation.

1981 Scientists develop a demineralized bone powder used to induce growth of new bone.

1982 Researchers perfect a prenatal test for detecting sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder.

1983 Investigator find a new drug therapy that halts the pregression of multiple sclerosis.

1985 The Howard Hughes Medical Institute commits $17 million to help fund a major research program in molecular genetics.

1986 Researchers identify a retrovirus as the probable cause of Kawasaki disease, an infectious illness occurring predominately in children under 5.

1986 The gene for the brain protein found in the degenerative nerve tissue of Alzheimer patients is isolated and located on chromosome 21.

1987 Dr. Louis M. Kunkel and his research team identify the gene on the X-chromosome responsible for muscular dystrophy.

1988 A 9-month old boy becomes the region's first recipient of a segmental liver transplantation, in which a donor liver is trimmed to a smaller size.

1988 Dr. Louis M. Kunkel and Dr. Eric Hoffman identify the protein missing in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, naming the protein "dystrophin."

1989 Dr. Judah Folkman and his research team produce a synthetic compound that inhibits the growth of blood vessels associated with tumors.

1989 Researches in Neurology and Genetics discover that beta amyloid, a protein that accumulates in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease, is toxic to neurons, indicating the possible cause of the degenerative disease.

1990 Dr. Gail Bruns and her colleagues clone one of the genes linked with Wilms' tumor, a type of kidney cancer.

1990 Radio waves directed through a catheter correct a cardiac rhythm disorder called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, marking the first pediatric nonsurgical repair of a cardiac arrythmia.

1990 Dr. Diana W. Bianchi performs chromosome analysis on fetal cells extracted from maternal blood, paving the way for a safer method of prenatal testing.

1990 Dr. Joseph E. Murray wins the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in organ transplantation.

1991 A surgical team led by Dr. Craig W. Lillehei performs the hospital's first double lung transplantation on a patient with cystic fibrosis.

1992 Dr. Joseph P. Vacanti and his team perform New England's first liver transplant from a living, related donor.

1992 Dr. Redmond Burke and Dr. Craig Lillehei perform the region's first pediatric heart-lung transplant.

1993 A team lead by Dr. Carlo Brugnara found that common antifungal medication prevents the dehydration of red blood cells in treating sickle cell disease.

 

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