Children S Center

Charles R. Lang, an official of thoroughbred racing, died yesterday of melanoma at the home of his parents in Oxford. He was 47.He was named manager of Retema Park race track in San Antonio in June but resigned in September because of poor health. From 1987 until June, he had been administrative director of Oaklawn Park, a track in Hot Springs, Ark.Since 1971, he had held positions at various tracks, including Pimlico Race Course, had been a jockey's agent and a racing columnist and handicapper for The Evening Sun.Better known as Chick Lang Jr., he was a member of a family that has been involved in horse racing for five generations.

Mothers who deliver their babies at Mercy Medical Center will soon do so with an expansive view of the Baltimore skyline. That is one of the features of the hospital's new Family Childbirth and Children's Center that will open in June. The $41.5 million project is the second phase of a new hospital building the medical center began moving into December 2010. The childbirth and children's center will occupy three floors of the The Mary Catherine Bunting Center. The new 70,000-square-foot center will focus on family-centered care with a goal of keeping mothers and babies together as much as possible.

Ali Barbieri occupies just a sliver of her grown-up bed at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, her 5-month-old legs suspended in a miniature traction rig that holds in place the hips she dislocated at birth. Most days Ali's mother, Natalia, sits with her all day, caressing her, distracting her with the toys that share her bed, trying to introduce her to solid foods. Barbieri knows just how well her daughter is sleeping, eating and feeling. So it makes sense to involve her in Ali's care - and to have her on hand when the doctors do their early-morning rounds.

A 13-year-old girl was taken to Johns Hopkins Children's Center after she was struck by a car in Middle River on Friday night. Baltimore County police said she was struck crossing the intersection of Martin Boulevard and Compass Road at about 5:46 p.m. Friday. A preliminarily investigation indicated pedestrian error, said Lt. Robert McCullough. "We are asking pedestrians to please cross roads at crosswalks and for motorists to watch out for pedestrians and bicycles," he said.

Mothers who deliver their babies at Mercy Medical Center will soon do so with an expansive view of the Baltimore skyline. That is one of the features of the hospital's new Family Childbirth and Children's Center that will open in June. The $41.5 million project is the second phase of a new hospital building the medical center began moving into December 2010. The childbirth and children's center will occupy three floors of the The Mary Catherine Bunting Center. The new 70,000-square-foot center will focus on family-centered care with a goal of keeping mothers and babies together as much as possible.

Telephones have been ringing, fax lines humming and opinions flowing after a group of prominent doctors last week issued an announcement that cow's milk is for cows, not humans.A week ago, four doctors, including Frank A. Oski, director of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, and the 90-year-old Benjamin Spock, supreme potentate-emeritus of baby doctors, held a news conference in Boston to denounce cow's milk.In a preview here the day before, Dr. Oski said: "There is no nutritional reason why anyone should drink milk."

Due to incorrect information provided by family members to the Baltimore Fire Department and area hospitals, a story in Thursday's editions of The Sun about a rowhouse fire Wednesday erroneously reported names of victims and where they were treated. Kenoya Taylor, 19 months, was pronounced dead at the University of Maryland Medical Center; Takiara Taylor, 2, was in critical condition at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center; Tyrieka Hickson, 5, was in critical condition at the Children's Center; Tanieka Hickson, 2, was in critical condition at the UM Medical Center; and Shannell Ratchford, 8, was discharged from UM Medical Center Thursday.

The group building the Baltimore's Children's Museum is exploring plans to make it the anchor for an even more ambitious development project: a children's center that would provide a wide range of services.Baltimore Children's Museum, Inc. the nonprofit group planning the center, recently chose a multidisciplinary team headed by Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse of Baltimore to assess the economic feasibility of creating the museum and center.The site under study is the Brokerage at the Inner Harbor, a three-acre, 280,000-square-foot complex of shops, offices and parking space bounded by Baltimore, Water and Frederick streets and Market Place.

Bryce W. Riley, 20, artist, Children's Center supporterBryce W. Riley, an artist and longtime supporter of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, died Saturday after emergency brain surgery at Sinai Hospital for a head injury he suffered in a wheelchair football game earlier that day. He was 20 and a Perry Hall resident.Mr. Riley was diagnosed with dermatomyositis, a rare muscle and tissue disease, when he was 6.For more than a decade, Mr. Riley was an energetic spokesman and fund-raiser for the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

Saturday is "liberty" for midshipmen -- a time for sleeping late, escaping campus or finding other diversions from a grueling week of study and training.So what is William Major, 20, doing reading to a boy who has spent the past seven weeks in traction at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center?What about Drew Streib, who assembled puzzles and cut shamrocks with two girls with tubes in their arms. Or Kathryn Sampson, who sat in a darkened room comforting a crying infant? Or Dante Jones, who shot pool with an 11-year-old boy who couldn't shake the flu because of a bone marrow disease?

Ali Barbieri occupies just a sliver of her grown-up bed at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, her 5-month-old legs suspended in a miniature traction rig that holds in place the hips she dislocated at birth. Most days Ali's mother, Natalia, sits with her all day, caressing her, distracting her with the toys that share her bed, trying to introduce her to solid foods. Barbieri knows just how well her daughter is sleeping, eating and feeling. So it makes sense to involve her in Ali's care - and to have her on hand when the doctors do their early-morning rounds.

Extreme Family Outreach will celebrate the grand opening of the SCUBE DO Children's Center at 6 p.m. Thursday at 1812 H. Pulaski Highway, Edgewood. A ribbon cutting will be held at 6 p.m., followed by refreshments. The Extreme Family Outreach's SCUBE DO kids will perform and a Powerpoint presentation will offer the center's vision and direction for 2008. Reservations are requested by tomorrow. Information: 410-688-3021. Ceramics exhibit at Cecil College Cecil College will open Perpetual State of Mind, an exhibit by Tom Hitner, with a reception at 6 p.m. Friday in the Gallery in the Milburn Stone Theatre, North East campus.

Investigators were working to determine the cause of a car collision in Carroll County that killed a local orthodontist and injured seven others, Maryland State Police said yesterday. Dr. Kevin Robert Lawyer, 39, of Finksburg died in the wreck, which occurred about 4:30 p.m. Thursday on Route 91 south of Old Gamber Road, police said. Lawyer was driving southbound on Route 91 in a GMC Yukon with his six children, ages 5 to 11, when his vehicle crossed the center dividing line and struck an Utz delivery truck.

Mayo Shattuck, the president and chief executive officer of Constellation Energy Group, and his wife, Molly, have donated $1 million toward the creation of a new pediatric burn center at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The unit, which will be in a new children's tower to be completed by 2010, will care for children younger than 15 and carry the Shattuck name. "Our wish is that children and their families who are confronted with serious burn injuries can find comfort and healing in this unit of Johns Hopkins Hospital," said Molly Shattuck.

Despite assurances to the contrary, the office that monitors conditions in state Department of Juvenile Services facilities is a shadow of its former self, in size and authority. When it reconvenes next month, the General Assembly must restore the presence and the power of the office of the independent juvenile justice monitor by overriding Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s veto of a bill to house it in the attorney general's office. In its scramble to re-create its Office of Children, Youth and Families, whose charter expired this year, the administration said it would keep intact - and autonomous - the monitors' department, the only independent group that is allowed regular access to juvenile facilities.

Interfaith center congregations sponsoring concert Choirs, instrumental ensembles, folk groups and soloists from six congregations at Oakland Mills Interfaith Center will perform in a benefit concert Sunday to celebrate the facility's 30th anniversary. The concert, "Celebrating Community," will be held at 2:30 p.m. in Room 200 of the center. Light refreshments will be served at 2 p.m. Tickets are available at the door, and can be ordered by calling Beryl Little, 410-992-0254. The suggested donation is $8 for adults; $5 for children; and $25 a family.

The Board of Trustees of Anne Arundel General Health Care Systems, the parent corporation of Anne Arundel Medical Center, recently approved plans for Phase II expansion of its Medical Park on Jennifer Road.Partial construction of the $35 million to $45 million project, which will create a women's and children's center, a diagnostic and treatment facility, and a medical office building, could begin as early as 1991 with completion in 1995, pending approval of funds and permits.The modern inpatient women's and children's center will provide comprehensive obstetric, gynecological and pediatric care offering labor and delivery rooms, single patient rooms, and sophisticated technology and treatment center will feature radiological, cardiac diagnostic and basic laboratory services.

County health officials want adults to know: Measles aren't just forkids.Beginning today, the county is offering free vaccinations to stop an increase in measles cases that can cause serious health problems for adults.This year, officials have confirmed six cases in Carroll County -- all in people in their late teens or early 20s, said Pat Burnett, director of personal health for the Carroll County Health Department.No cases were reported last year, officials said."Each (infected person) had been vaccinated as a child.

Jeanne M. Simons, a psychiatric social worker and pioneer in the field of autism who established the Linwood Children's Center in Ellicott City, died Tuesday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Vantage House in Columbia. She was 95. Miss Simons was born near Brussels, Belgium. After graduating from a teachers college in The Hague, Netherlands, she taught school from 1927 to 1933. She came to Washington with the outbreak of World War II and worked with emotionally disturbed children at Children's House.

A pair of year-old twin girls joined at the head will undergo a surgical separation procedure beginning Saturday, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center announced yesterday. A team of 50, including surgeons and other medical personnel, will begin the operation at 7 a.m. and continue working for 24 to 48 hours. The patients, Lea and Tabea Block, are from Lemgo, Germany, a city of about 40,000 in the western half of the country. Born Aug. 9 last year, they have conjoined heads, a condition known as craniopagus that occurs in about one of every 2 million births.