Transforming Packard

BY LAURIE VAUGHAN

WINTER 2004 -- In every transformation from good to great, there's a crucial turning point. The discovery of penicillin transformed the power of a physician’s black bag. Stanford Provost Fred Terman’s vision sparked the technology revolution that changed an orchard-studded valley into a center of innovation.

Related Information
	Children's Heart Center: Their Best and Only Hope
	Surgical Program: Pushing the Boundaries
	Pediatric Neurosurgery: Growing Success
	Cancer and Blood Diseases: Improving the Odds
	Cystic Fibrosis and Pulmonary Diseases: Novel Therapies Bring New Hope

For Packard, the turning point has been the Campaign for Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Launched in 2001, the five-year fundraising drive is turning the Hospital into a world-class center for research and treatment of diseases and conditions that affect children.

"The vision of the Campaign is for Packard to become one of the premier children’s hospitals in the country," says Harvey Cohen, M.D., Ph.D., Hospital chief of staff and the Arline and Pete Harman Professor for the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics. "To do this," he says, "we will offer the best of family-centered, comprehensive care to children and pregnant women; develop Centers of Excellence that will improve patients' health through combining superb clinical care with excellent training of the next generation of physicians and scientists; and create therapeutic innovations that utilize the science and technologies of Stanford University, the School of Medicine, and Silicon Valley."

Moving the Hospital's programs from good to excellent requires bringing together the strongest teams in pediatric care. Recruiting some of the world's top physicians, scientists, and surgeons has thus been a priority for the clinical programs targeted by the Campaign. Indeed, the list of recently hired faculty, along with the distinguished specialists already in place at Packard, reads like a pediatric Hall of Fame.

"The impact of the Campaign so far is real and profound, by lots and lots of measures," says Thomas Krummel, M.D., the Hospital's first Susan B. Ford Surgeon in Chief. "The gifts have brought such dramatic achievements in just three years that the Campaign has opened up incredible new opportunities to develop the best in medicine for children."