History

Babies Hospital appoints L. Emmett Holt, who laid the groundwork for the field of pediatrics, as medical director. Dr. Holt observes that nurses are keeping a clipboard at the side of each bed and noting important clinical information on it. He begins adding physician observations to it, giving birth to the medical chart.

Dr. Holt adapts lecture notes that the head of nursing used to educate parents for his book, The Care and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses.

The new eight-story building on Lexington Avenue has a modern electric elevator, telephone, an X-ray machine, and 80 beds. The hospital also has dedicated departments of pathology, surgery, and radiology.

Babies Hospital opens the first ward in the US specifically for premature infants.

During the tenure of Dr. Herbert Wilcox Sr. (P&S '02), and under his leadership, Babies Hospital became closely affiliated with Columbia University and Presbyterian Hospital.  

Pathologist Dr. Martha Wollstein, whose research showed that mumps is caused by a virus, is elected as the first woman to the American Pediatric Society. Dr. Wollstein also studied polio and pneumonia, and helped to develop an antimeningitis serum.

Dr. Donovan McCune describes the first case of polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, a rare genetic endocrine disease affecting the bones and pigmentation of the skin, subsequently known as McCune-Albright syndrome.

Dr. Katherine Merritt publishes a case report of an infant with thrombocytopenia with giant hemangioma, subsequently named Kasabach-Merritt syndrome.

Dr. John Caffey publishes the comprehensive text, Pediatric X-Ray Diagnosis, which establishes the intellectual basis of pediatric radiology. Dr. Caffey also publishes a description of infantile cortical hyperostosis, now known as “Caffey disease,” and shortly after that the first description of “shaken baby syndrome.”

Anesthesiologist Dr. Virginia Apgar creates a simple scoring method for predicting the health status of newborns, now known as the “Apgar score.” The Apgar score measures five body functions at one minute after birth and again five minutes later to determine whether there is need for life-saving assistance. It has become an international standard of care of neonates.

Pediatric hematologist/oncologist Dr. James Wolff is one of the founding members of the Acute Leukemia Chemotherapy Cooperative Study Group A, which pooled patients from several hospitals to ensure a sufficient number of patients to conduct statistically rigorous trials of new therapies. This eventually became the Children’s Oncology Group, now an international network of more than 200 hospitals, universities, and cancer centers. The results of this coordinated approach have spread far beyond pediatric cancers: Many of the drugs that eventually became mainstay treatments for adult cancer were initially tested by this consortium of researchers in pediatric patients.

Dr. Algernon Reese, founder of the field of ophthalmic oncology, develops the Reese-Ellsworth classification of retinoblastoma to predict a patient’s prognosis after treatment with radiation.

Pediatrician and noted tropical medicine specialist Dr. Michael Katz is named chair of the department. During his tenure specialists at Columbia perform the first pediatric heart transplant, describe the syndrome of persistent fetal circulation, and develop continuous positive alveolar pressure (CPAP) for premature infants. Dr. Katz is a consultant to the World Health Organization, among many other organizations here and abroad, and from 1992 to 2018 is senior vice president for research and global programs, then senior advisor, transdisciplinary research, of the March of Dimes Foundation.

Dr. Robert Mellins is the first and only pediatrician to be appointed president of the American Thoracic Society. Dr. Mellins, a founding father of the field of pediatric pulmonology, was an international authority in the field of pediatric asthma and a career-long advocate for multidisciplinary research and patient care who welcomed into his laboratory and clinics trainees from disciplines as widespread as allergy, anesthesiology, engineering, health education, psychology, and nutrition.

Neonatologist Dr. John Driscoll, who had directed the NICU since 1971, is named chair of Pediatrics. Under his leadership, the NICU gained international recognition for its innovative approaches. During Dr. Driscoll’s 15-year tenure as chair, he was instrumental in the construction of the new Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. He retired in June 2007.

Dr. Lawrence Stanberry, a world-renowned virologist and prolific author, is appointed department chair. Under his leadership the department expands its NIH funding and endowment, creates a faculty development and mentorship program and Children’s Board, and enters the era of precision medicine with the Precision in Pediatric Sequencing (PIPseq) program. The department establishes programs in Global Health Security and Diplomacy, complex care coordination for children with multi-system illnesses, and comprehensive obesity prevention and treatment. The department also opens the Milstein Infant Cardiac Unit, the first such dedicated infant unit in world; the Phyllis and Ivan Seidenberg Center for Children’s Digestive Health; and the Neuro Intensive Care Unit. Dr. Stanberry retires in 2018.