TV Series Marks The Children's Hospital Centennial
Through 100 years of research and medical breakthroughs, committed employees, compassionate volunteers and an exceptionally gifted medical staff, The Children’s Hospital has revolutionized pediatric healthcare.
As we celebrate our centennial year, The Children’s Hospital partnered with CBS-4 to document milestones in our history through a television series.
The four-part series includes stories from the following years:
1918: Pandemic Influenza
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Chris Nyquist, MD, epidemiologist at The Children's Hospital, was interviewed about the influenza pandemic of 1918, as well as a family whose one-month-old son was treated using today’s technology at The new Children’s Hospital in 2008.
Pandemic influenza of 1918 struck worldwide. An estimated 675,000 Americans, including Denver’s then-Mayor Robert Speer, died as a result of the pandemic. The city’s children were hit hard. Schools, movie houses and theaters were closed in an attempt to slow the contagion, but it wasn’t enough. On Sunday, Oct. 18, 1918, the Rocky Mountain News reported that there had been 17 deaths during the preceding four days. The hospital treated 223 patients for the flu between April, 1918 and April, 1919. Nine of those children died. At the height of the epidemic, hospital staffers converted the entire third floor to an emergency ward, where they treated 108 cases within 24 hours. The hospital did not have enough staff to serve the needs of its patients due to the number of doctors and nurses who left to serve in World War I, so hospital board members filled in as nurses’ aides.
Today, The Children’s Hospital’s new Emergency Department is a technological marvel and is designated as the site for pediatric patients in the wake of a mass casualty, pandemic or bioterrorism event. The unit is equipped with sealed water, waste and air systems; negative air pressure capabilities; and both external and internal decontamination areas. Children arriving with flu symptoms are immediately isolated from other patients and families.
1952: Polio Epidemic
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Jules Amer, MD, community pediatrician for more than 50 years in Denver, was interviewed about the polio epidemic, as well as a 79-year-old man who had an iron lung for 30 years.
At the height of the polio epidemic in 1952, nearly 60,000 cases and more than 3,000 deaths were reported in the United States alone. However, with widespread vaccination, polio occurring through natural infection was eliminated from the United States by 1979 and the Western hemisphere by 1991.
The most recent national survey regarding vaccinations (August 2003) reported that Colorado ranked lowest of all 50 states for immunization rates in children 19 months to 36 months (62.7 percent). This dramatic failure demonstrates the continuing need to increase awareness of the importance of immunizations and to develop strategies to increase the number of fully immunized children. The Children’s Hospital has long promoted the importance of childhood immunization through legislative advocacy, media awareness campaigns and community education with the result that today, Colorado has moved up significantly in the state rankings.
1978: Discovery of Toxic Shock Syndrome
James Todd, MD, reunites with a
patient he saved from Toxic Shock
Syndrome when she was 12 years old.
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James Todd, MD, an epidemiologist at The Children's Hospital, discovered and named Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) to describe staphylococcal illness in 1978. One of Dr. Todd’s former TSS patients, aged 12 at the time, was interviewed and reunited with him, “her hero,†because he saved her life.
Contrary to popular belief, men, women and children can all get toxic shock syndrome, for example following burns, boils, insect bites or infections after surgery. About half of the reported cases are linked to women who use tampons; the other half are not.
2007: The Future of Children’s Medicine
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Frank Chang, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at The Children's Hospital, was interviewed about The Center for Gait and Movement Analysis (CGMA). The segment features a cerebral palsy patient who gained the ability to walk due to the advanced technology of the gait and movement lab.
CGMA at The Children’s Hospital is the region’s first and one of the nation’s newest and most technologically advanced centers that provides a comprehensive analysis of gait and movement. The multi-disciplinary team combines medicine, research, rehab science, engineering and technology for patients with neuromuscular disorders. CGMA is also one of the few clinics at The Children’s Hospital that treats both children and adult patients.
CGMA’s 4800-square-foot facility is equipped with 12 state-of-the-art motion capture cameras with ground reaction plates embedded in the floor capable of measuring kinetics (ground reaction forces and joint moments), a 3-dimensional (3D) motion kinematics system (measures joint angles during the task performed), surface electromyography (EMG) (analyzes when the six major walking muscles turn on and off), all supported by advanced computer and video.
