PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL MEDICINE NEWS BUREAU
Contact: Leonard N. Karp
lkarp@philadelphiamedicine.com
215-735-3989
For Immediate Release:
In this month’s issue:
1. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Again Ranked Number One in the U.S.
2. Magee Physiatrists Earn Subspecialty Certification in Spinal Cord Injury Medicine
3. Penn Center for Human Appearance Helps Train Physicians Worldwide in Plastic Surgery
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Again Ranked Number One in the U.S.
Philadelphia - Child magazine has again ranked The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia the best children's hospital in the United States. This is the second consecutive time Child magazine has ranked Children's Hospital "number one." The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is a member of Philadelphia International Medicine (PIM). To make a medical appointment at Children's Hospital, call PIM at 215-735-3575.
"We are exceptionally proud of the commitment to excellence that is demonstrated by its number one ranking," said Andrew Wigglesworth, president and CEO of PIM. "Children's Hospital and all the hospitals of the Philadelphia International Medicine network represent an extraordinary medical resource for physicians and patients."
Child magazine also ranked The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's cardiac and oncology centers as the best in the nation and the Newborn/Infant Center ranked second highest in the nation.
The Child magazine survey is based on hard data rather than subjective opinions. It is the result of a comprehensive data-based study of children's hospitals across the United States. The study looked at depth and breadth of clinical outcomes, research activities, various support services provided to children and families, and the amount of government research funding hospitals receive.
The Cardiac Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is an established provider of multidisciplinary care for children with acquired and congenital heart disease and houses an internationally renowned program in cardiothoracic surgery, as well as the East Coast's largest heart and heart/lung transplantation program. The Cardiac Center performs more than 900 cardiac surgical procedures a year, including 500 pediatric open heart surgeries, and provides cardiac evaluation and treatment in more than 17,000 outpatient visits annually.
The Center's extensive experience in cardiac catheterization techniques has helped foster its expansion from solely a diagnostic tool to its use as a therapeutic modality. Cardiac Center surgeons are leaders in the use of pioneering techniques for minimally invasive cardiac surgery in children, including the modification of instruments for use in pediatric patients. The Fetal Heart Program, a subspecialty within the Cardiac Center, provides earlier diagnoses that lead to earlier treatment interventions and improved outcomes overall. It specializes in the detection, evaluation and ongoing management of congenital heart disease. It performs more than 1,200 fetal echocardiography studies annually, making it among the largest programs of its kind in the nation.
The Oncology Program at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is one of the nation's largest cancer programs exclusively dedicated to children, and is home to an international center for pediatric cancer research. The institution's oncology unit consists of 31 inpatient beds including a bone marrow transplant unit and a dedicated outpatient oncology clinic. The Oncology Program admits 400 new cancer patients each year, and provides follow-up care to an additional 3,600 children. Researchers in the Oncology Program are leading the way in classifying and treating neuroblastoma, the most common solid tumor in children, and is at the forefront of developing new therapies to treat pediatric brain tumors.
Additionally, researchers here have pioneered a study of the long-term effects of treatment on survivors of childhood cancer, and developed the first long-term follow-up program in the nation for childhood cancer survivors.
The 50-bed Newborn/Infant Center (NIC) is equipped to provide for the complete range of neonatal and infant critical illnesses including all types of respiratory, surgical, cardiac, genetic, renal neurological, hematological and metabolic diseases. The NIC receives approximately 900 admissions per year and serves as a primary referral center for other neonatal intensive care units. Infants with certain problems, such as those with severe lung disease or surgical abnormalities identified prenatally, are frequently referred on both the national and international level to the NIC for highly specialized care.
The Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment established in 1995 is one of only two comprehensive centers worldwide to offer technologically advanced, multidisciplinary care for unborn babies with genetic or anatomical abnormalities and collaborates with the NIC team to provide optimal continuum of care for these newborns post-partum.
Magee Physiatrists Earn Subspecialty Certification in Spinal Cord Injury Medicine
Christopher S. Formal, MD, and Liane Sher, MD, physiatrists at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, have been granted Subspecialty Certification in Spinal Cord Injury Medicine by the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. With their achievement, Drs. Formal and Sher join four other Magee physicians, including William E. Staas Jr., MD, FACP, the hospital's president and medical director, who have SCI Subspecialty Certification.
Magee Rehabilitation Hospital is a member of Philadelphia International Medicine.
In 2001, Michael Saulino, MD, PhD, and Dawn Rider, MD, were granted certification. Previously, Guy W. Fried, MD, also earned the distinction. Dr. Staas, in extending his congratulations to Drs. Formal and Sher, added that "these most recent certifications again underscore the high quality of our staff of physicians at Magee. We are justifiably proud of their accomplishments, and of Dr. Formal achieving the highest test score in the nation. The long list of achievements of all our physicians is a good indication of the exceptional care Magee patients receive, and why Magee has gained national prominence as a premier rehabilitation hospital."
SCI Medicine addresses the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management of traumatic spinal cord injury, as well as spinal cord dysfunction not caused by injury. Questions on the Certification Exam address, but are not limited to: spinal cord trauma and disease; medical complications of spinal cord injury such as chronic pain, spasticity, pulmonary impairment, and gastrointestinal complications; orthotic and assistive devices, and the rehabilitation of persons of all ages with spinal cord injury.
Subspecialty certification in SCI Medicine is designed to enhance the quality of care of patients with spinal cord injury or dysfunction. Physicians certified in SCI Medicine demonstrate special expertise in clinical knowledge and skill that improve the rehabilitation and care of individuals with spinal cord injury, and in diagnostic and management services for complex and severe problems related to spinal cord injury.
Dr. Formal has been a member of Magee's medical staff since 1982, and is the hospital' s assistant medical director for educational programs. He is on the staff of Thomas Jefferson University. His teaching positions include clinical associate professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Jefferson Medical College, and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy and Department of Physical Therapy, Jefferson College of Health Professions, Thomas Jefferson University.
Dr. Sher joined Magee in 1990. Currently, she is the attending physiatrist and medical director, Magee at Methodist, and serves as consultant to Methodist Hospital and Methodist Hospital Nursing Center. Dr. Sher is also clinical instructor, consultant, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Thomas Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.
While Dr. Sher's lectures and presentations encompass a wide range of physical medicine and rehabilitation, her special interests center on electromyography (EMG), and geriatric, neuromuscular and musculoskeletal rehabilitation.
Penn Center for Human Appearance Helps Train Physicians Worldwide in Plastic Surgery
It was during Anna Chrapusta's last year of medical school at Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow eight years ago that she first observed Scott Bartlett, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center (UPMC), Division of Plastic Surgery performing craniofacial surgery at her hospital in Krakow, Poland. Now, in 2003, she has had the opportunity to observe Dr. Bartlett in his usual operating room at the University of Pennsylvania.
The University of Pennsylvania Medical Center is a member of PIM. PIM can arrange observerships and other training programs for international physicians.
Anna, now Dr. Chrapusta-Klimecek, came to Philadelphia with the support of the Edwin and Fannie Gray Hall Center for Human Appearance. The Center is a group of specialists at UPMC consisting of plastic surgeons, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, oculoplastic surgeons, dermatologists and psychologists. Support for the Center comes from a gift from the Edwin Hall II Trust, which the Center physicians use to fund research and education related to appearance.
Linton Whitaker, MD founded the Center for Human Appearance in 1987. His pioneering work in craniofacial surgery led him to the scientific study of appearance, and showed him the value of a team approach to problems of appearance.
Dr. Bartlett has traveled to Poland at least once each year since 1986, teaching surgeons about the reconstruction of the face and treating patients afflicted by craniofacial anomalies. About ten years ago, he persuaded Peter Quinn, MD, DMD, now the chair of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, to join him, and Dr. Quinn has returned with him every year since.
One of the goals of their efforts has been to train surgeons in Poland in the techniques we use in this country to bring function and normal appearance to patients with craniofacial problems. In the many years Poland lived behind the Iron Curtain, patients were not able to get the kind of reconstructive surgery that would allow them to enter the work and social worlds that most of us enjoy.
Bringing a young surgeon to this country to observe operations first hand was the next logical step to insure that Drs. Bartlett's and Quinn's teaching and work over the years would continue. For two years, they considered which of the young surgeons they met would be able to build a vision for craniofacial surgery in Poland.
Last year, Dr. Bartlett extended the invitation to Anna Chrapusta- Klimeczek who had been practicing in the University Children's Hospital in Cracow for seven years. He and Dr. Quinn saw in her the surgical skills, leadership ability and enthusiasm for building a program at her hospital. University Children's Hospital is one of the more modern facilities in a country where the people are still struggling from the oppression of the years of communist rule.
After her return to Poland, she will be able to evaluate and treat children with craniofacial anomalies, eyelid anomalies, jaw deformities and other appearance related problems more fully.
When Drs. Bartlett and Quinn return to Poland in April for their annual trip, they will have advanced information about the children they see, and assist Dr. Chrapusta-Klimeczek to expand her program even more.
Philadelphia International Medicine is an organization that provides medical and patient support services to international patients. It also provides continuing medical education and health care training and education to international physicians, administrators and other practitioners. As the international department of several Philadelphia-area hospitals, international patients gain access to physicians and hospitals rated among the best in the world through one telephone call to PIM. You can reach PIM by calling 1-215-735-3575; fax, 1-215-790-1267; or e-mail, physicians@philadelphiamedicine.com. You can find out more about PIM through its Website at www.philadelphiamedicine.com.