One of many benefits of living in Houston is the extraordinary Texas Children’s Hospital located in Houston’s famed Texas Medical Center. Texas Children’s — as Houstonians call it — is truly one of the most remarkable medical facilities for children in the world.
This Chronicle article reports on a reception that Texas Childrens held on Friday to celebrate the 50th year of service by the hospital’s pediatric heart unit, which reflects Texas Childrens’ overall excellence:

Texas Children’s Hospital . . . opened in February 1954. Pediatric cardiology was the hospital’s first subspecialty. Today, as many as 12,000 patients are treated and 700 surgeries performed annually at the heart center.
More than 35,000 children a year are born with congenital heart defects, a primary cause of first-year death of infants. Since the 1960s, . . . survival rates in such cases have increased to nearly 95 percent from 70 percent.
Dr. Ralph Feigin, the hospital’s physician-in-chief, said the hospital’s heart center has been a “cradle of innovations since its inception.”

“The center has pioneered numerous pediatric cardiology procedures and maintains one of the nation’s highest success rates in treating patients with congenital heart abnormalities,” he said.

Increasingly, the hospital has moved into high-tech medicine. About 550 fetal echocardiograms are performed each year to identify heart problems before birth. Such early detection can ensure that babies receive immediate care, including surgery, for their problems.
In another high-tech development, heart center surgeons have performed 158 pediatric heart transplants ? 17 of them this year ? since the program began 20 years ago.

Texas Children’s Hospital is a treasure of the Houston community.
Meanwhile, in other Medical Center news, Methodist Hospital announced on Friday the Methodist Board’s approval of an initial $30 million endowment to launch the creation of the Southwest’s first neurological institute to advance the discovery of the origins of neurological disease and to provide comprehensive care for patients with disorders and injuries of the brain and spinal cord.
The creation of the institute is the latest step in Methodist’s plan to become an academic institution in the aftermath of this year’s acrimonious split with Baylor College of Medicine, its partner and supplier of physician-scientists and residents for the past 50 years.

Kicking off a capital campaign, Baylor College of Medicine announced Wednesday it has received a $35 million gift from Baylor trustee and longtime Houstonian Dan Duncan to kick off the building of a new Baylor-operated clinic in the Texas Medical Center.
Mr. Duncan’s donation will be paid over 10 years and represents about a third of the clinic’s estimated cost. The clinic will be between 250,000 to 350,000 square feet and finished by late 2007 at a cost of about $90 million. The clinic will offer a full range of medical services from cardiology to ophthalmology, checkups, lab tests, and day surgery. The clinic will also allow patients to receive diagnosis and treatment in one place for conditions that cross specialties.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston earlier this month announced the purchase the Hermann Professional Building to use as its outpatient clinic and Methodist Hospital has plans to build such a clinic, a plan that was part of the reason that Baylor and Methodist ended their 50 year relationship earlier this year.

This Chronicle article reports on the the latest dustup between longtime partners Baylor College of Medicine and the Methodist Hospital — Baylor has started moving residents to St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, which is generating even more acrimoney in the already chippy split with between Baylor and Methodist. Here are earlier posts on the Baylor-Methodist divorce.
Executives at Methodist claim to be “dumbfounded” at th e move and claim that the transfer reneges on a previous agreement between the two institutions regarding involving the allotment of residents.
This latest dispute is only the latest in a series of disputes that have arise after Baylor and Methodist’s decision to part ways in April ended an historic 50-year Texas Medical Center relationship during which the hospital was Baylor’s primary teaching hospital for its medical students and residents. St. Luke’s is Baylor’s new teaching hospital and Methodist’s new primary partner is Cornell University’s medical school, which is located in New York.
In other Medical Center news, this Chronicle article reports that Memorial Hermann Hospital System and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston renewed their agreement in which Memorial Hermann serves as the school’s primary teaching hospital. UT-Houston and Hermann — which have been partners since 1968 — agreed to continue their partnership for 15 more years.
Under the renewal, UT-Houston purchased the Hermann Professional Building and adjacent garage for $31 million and renamed the building the University of Texas Health Science Center Professional Building. It will be UT-Houston’s first outpatient clinic, and its location (across the street from UT-Houston) will be convenient for UT-Houston faculty and students.

As if there wasn’t enough gossip being generated in the Texas Medical Center these days, this Chronicle article reports as follows:

Texas Children’s Hospital’s longtime chief financial officer, Sally Nelson, has resigned from her job as executive vice president and CFO after 18 years with the hospital.
Nelson left the positions she’s held since 1987 a week ago, the hospital said. On Tuesday it released a brief statement thanking Nelson for her years of service without offering an explanation for her sudden exit.
Reached at her Houston home, Nelson directed all inquiries about the reason for her abrupt resignation to Texas Children’s, the nation’s largest pediatric hospital.

“You’ll have to call the marketing department at the hospital about that,” she said. “They’ll tell you all about it.”

The hospital, however, would not comment beyond saying that Randall Wright, senior vice president and chief information officer at Texas Children’s, will serve as the acting executive vice president and CFO.

“It’s our policy and our practice to respect the privacy of our current and former employes, so the statement includes only the information that we can release,” Texas Children’s spokeswoman Jennifer Hart said.

Daniel Arnold, a member of the Baylor College of Medicine board of trustees and the former chairman of that board, has sent the full board a July 14 letter calling for Baylor President Dr. Peter Traber to be fired for failed leadership. Mr. Arnold’s letter states that Traber’s management of Baylor is “deleterious” and “divisive,” and that “his lack of realistic vision and fundamental errors in judgment” are not what Baylor needs in a leader. Here is the Houston Chronicle article on this latest Medical Center dustup. The letter is expected to be discussed today at a meeting of the 48-member board.
Corby Robertson, the current chairman of the Baylor board, told the Chronicle that he believes that Dr. Traber has the board’s support
Mr. Arnold sent his letter amid the recent political fallout over the split of the long teaching relationship between Baylor and The Methodist Hospital (earlier posts here). The institutions have been in open conflict since deciding to sever their 50-year relationship in which Methodist served as the teaching hospital for Baylor students and residents. Last week, Baylor threatened legal action against Methodist if the hospital does not cease actions that Baylor alleges are interfering with Baylor’s operations, including Methodist’s “aggressive recruiting” of Baylor faculty members.
Mr. Arnold was the Baylor board chairman who butted heads with popular Baylor faculty member and president, Dr. Ralph Feigin. In that conflict, Mr. Arnold attempted to force Dr. Feigin to choose between the presidency and his other job as physician-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital. Dr. Feigin subsequently announced he was stepping down, only to have the decision overturned a month later after key faculty and trustees objected. Dr. Traber replaced Dr. Feigin in March, 2003 when Dr. Feigin resigned at the age of 65.
Update: The Baylor board voted unanimously (with one abstention) to support Dr. Traber.

Longtime Houston oilman and real estate developer George Mitchell and his wife Cynthia have donated $2.5 million to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to fund the creation of the George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, which will coordinate UTMB’s expanded research into Alzheimer’s disease. Mrs. Mitchell has suffered from Alzheimer’s over the past several years.
The new UTMB center will focus on Alzheimer’s but also will conduct research on similar degenerative neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. The Mitchell donation will be combined with other donations and grants to intensify UTMB’s overall neurological research.
Although Mr. Mitchell has long been a major player in Houston independent oil and gas circles, he is best known as the developer and visionary of The Woodlands, the planned suburban community 30 miles north of downtown Houston that Mr. Mitchell started 30 years ago and which now is home to almost 100,000 residents.

The stakes in the ugly divorce between Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital (earlier posts here) that has had medical officials in Houston’s famed Texas Medical Center chattering for months just zoomed through the roof.
As predicted here earlier, Baylor Board of Trustees Chairman Corbin Robertson Jr. sent Methodist’s board a letter on July 20 threatening legal action against the hospital if it doesn’t stop alleged illegal interference with Baylor’s medical business, putting its accreditation at risk by recruiting faculty under contract, evicting it from space, and refusing to negotiate a contract that would allot some faculty and residents to the hospital.

“Baylor and its longstanding programs at all affiliated hospitals will be damaged as a result of Methodist’s actions,” Robertson wrote in the July 20 letter. “It is our fervent desire to maintain or repair our relationship rather than engage in legal debates or worse, but you will, of course, understand the fiduciary obligation of the Baylor board to assure Baylor’s compliance with law and to safeguard our assets.”

Methodist officials reacted to the letter by calling its claims “highly offensive” and “not in the spirit of the Texas Medical Center,” and by saying they have no intention of altering their actions. The now open free-for-all between the two former institutional partners is a remarkable development within the Medical Center community, which has always prided itself on harmonious relations between its various member institutions.
The conflict between Methodist and Baylor has been escalating since the two institutions decided earlier this year to end their 50-year relationship in which Methodist served as Baylor’s primary teaching hospital for medical students and residents. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital is Baylor’s new primary teaching hospital, and Baylor is now building its own outpatient clinic. Methodist in turn recently entered into a relationship with Cornell University’s Weill Medical School, which is in New York.
In the wake of their split, conflicts have developed between Baylor and Methodist over a new affiliation agreement, Baylor’s use of space at Methodist, and over retention of staff and faculty physicians. After a Methodist official earlier this year stated publicly that Methodist hospital division chiefs ? most of whom also are Baylor department chairmen ? needed to choose between the two institutions, Methodist’s chief of surgery resigned from the hospital and Baylor’s chairman of pathology resigned from the college. More doctor fallout from the two institutions is expected.
Mr. Robertson’s letter focuses on rank-and-file Baylor faculty, most of whom are under contract. The letter contends that Methodist’s “aggressive recruiting” of those faculty members amounts to tortious interference with Baylor’s contractual relations.
Stay tuned on this front folks. As we say in the legal community: “Let’s get ready to rumble!”

Deep divisions in the Texas Medical Center resulted from the decision of Baylor College of Medicine to terminate its 50 year relationship with the Methodist Hospital earlier this year. One by-product of the split is that Baylor and Methodist began to compete with each other for medical talent (earlier posts here) that previously served both institutions.
This Chronicle story reports on Dr. Michael Lieberman‘s resignation yesterday as chairman of Baylor’s pathology department to become director of Methodist’s new research instititue. This move follows the earlier resignation of Methodist’s chief of surgery to remain with Baylor.
Dr. Lieberman is the first key defection from Baylor to Methodist in the battle between Methodist and Baylor to retain staff members. Before the Baylor-Methodist breakup, 19 of Methodist’s division chiefs were Baylor department chairs; now that number is down to 17 and almost certain to reduce further.
Dr. Lieberman was one of the doctors who co-signed a letter to Baylor trustees in April opposing the breakup because it could cause “a crisis of major proportions” and predicting that many faculty would “undoubtedly” stay at Methodist.
Expect more defections between these two fine institutions as the dust settles after this unfortunate divorce in a long-standing Medical Center relationship.

Guy S. Parcel, Ph.D has been appointed to a three-year term as dean of The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston in the Texas Medical Center.
Dr. Parcel, who is currently executive dean, will take over the deanship when Dr. R. Palmer Beasley retires in December. Beasley has served as UT School of Public Health dean for more than 17 years and is now completing a two-year term as chairman of the Association of Schools of Public Health. The appointment makes Parcel only the third dean in the 35-year history of what is the oldest school of public health in Texas. Dr. Parcel, a John P. McGovern Professor in Health Promotion at UT School of Public Health, was appointed executive dean in February 2003 and had previously served as acting dean of the school on several occasions.
The UT School of Public Health is ranked as the fifth-largest in student enrollment and seventh in research funding. About 50 percent of the school’s more than 3,000 graduates work in Texas.

U.S. News & World Report’s annual survey of hospitals ranks several hospitals in Houston’s famed Texas Medical Center as among the best in their respective fields in the United States.
The annual survey ranks The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for the third year in a row as the nation’s top cancer hospital. Besides being named the best cancer hospital for the fourth time in the last five years, M.D. Anderson was also named the fifth best in gynecology, and the 10th best in both the specialties of ear, nose and throat, and urology.
The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research was recognized as the third best rehabilitation hospital in the country. Texas Children’s Hospital ranked fourth in pediatrics in the magazine’s survey. The Menninger Clinic was named the sixth best psychiatric hospital in the country.
The Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital was named the ninth best heart center. Moreover, The Methodist Hospital ranked in nine of the survey’s categories, including 10th best in the area of neurology and neurosurgery.
The magazine’s rankings are based on a nationwide survey of doctors, on hospital reputations in 17 medical specialties, and an analysis of indicators such as death rates, technology and nurse staffing. Of the more than 6,000 U.S. hospitals, only 177 ranked in even a single specialty in this year’s survey.
The Texas Medical Center is one amazing collection of medical talent.