Barton and Elliman Families Establish New Endowed Chair in Cardiothoracic Surgery
By Wendy S. Meyer, director, Communications, The Children’s Hospital Foundation
Mary and Don Elliman and Laura
Barton pose with François
Lacour-Gayet, MD, in his new
chair: The Barton-Elliman Chair
in PediatricCardiothoracic
Surgery. As of theend of 2007,
donors had funded 21endowed
chairs at TheChildren’s Hospital.
Laura Barton, together with Don and Mary Elliman, made gifts totaling $2.5 million to establish The Barton-Elliman Chair in Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery. On January 9, The Children’s Hospital Foundation hosted a reception in the Conference Center to honor the donors and the chairholder, François Lacour-Gayet, MD, chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery.
The chair will support research and clinical work in Cardiothoracic Surgery and it will also stand as a celebration of the life of Peter Barton and the enduring friendship between the Barton and Elliman families. Peter Barton died of stomach cancer in 2002 at the age of 51.
“Peter would be so proud, as we are, to know that his good luck and hard work would support The Heart Institute and the incredible expertise of Dr. François LaCour-Gayet and his team through the Barton-Elliman Endowed Chair,” said Laura Barton at the reception. “And he would especially love the fact, as we do, that his friendship with Don Elliman and his beloved family would be memorialized in this way.”
Laura Barton was inspired to establish the chair in part because she witnessed the outstanding care provided by doctors and nurses at The Children’s Hospital through her close friends, John and Anna Sie and Don and Mary Elliman.
The Sies—friends of the Bartons from the cable industry—have a granddaughter, Sophia Sie Whitten, who has Down Syndrome and underwent surgery at TCH for a heart defect. Dr. Lacour-Gayet was her surgeon.
The Ellimans’ son, Mac, has muscular dystrophy and has been treated at TCH on numerous occasions. Barton rode three times as part of “Team Mac” in The Children’s Hospital Courage Classic. Don Elliman is immediate past chair of the hospital’s Board of Directors, was a co-chair of the Imagine the Miracles campaign and is a member of The Children’s Hospital Foundation’s Board of Trustees.
Peter Barton was a cable television pioneer and a founding president and CEO of Liberty Media Corporation. He and Laura, who also worked in the industry, were “cable television sweethearts,” she says with a laugh. They went on to marry and have three children, Kate, 20, Jeff, 18 and Chris, 16.
“I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Lacour-Gayet and his ability to deliver extraordinary care and develop technology to improve care,” Barton says.
Lacour-Gayet is one of the world’s foremost cardiothoracic surgeons. His research will receive funding support each year from the interest on the endowed chair. He is a professor of surgery and Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at The Children's Hospital. He is also the co-chairman of the The Children’s Hospital Heart Institute. Dr. Lacour-Gayet performs up to 250 pediatric heart operations a year; he has particular research interests in complex neonatal cardiac surgery, complex biventricular repair and Fontan circulation.
“Research funding is crucial in keeping TCH at the forefront of advances in the field as well as in maintaining its position as one of the top 10 children’s hospitals in the country,” said Lacour-Gayet.
Recently, he received attention for a research project that involves developing and implanting an artificial right ventricle for children with single heart ventricles. Dr. Lacour-Gayet worked collaboratively on this project with researcher and engineer Robin Shandas at the University of Colorado .
“I am so grateful to Laura Barton and her family, as well as Don and Mary Elliman, for this endowment,” Lacour-Gayet said. “Their generosity will benefit the children and families who rely on The Children’s Hospital and the advancement of cardiothoracic surgery overall.”
