Children S Hospital

AT CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL in Washington, a clutch of third-graders, clad in miniature scrub gowns, mills noisily about the atrium lobby, trying out stethoscopes and pumping up blood pressure cuffs.Small heads bob among X-ray machines and exhibits of emergency room equipment. The orthopedics department, demonstrating casting techniques, has gathered a little crowd, where doctors are fitting the children's fingers with slip-on casts, then letting the kids paint these "hard bandages" to make whimsical finger puppets.

Dr. Mark I. Rossberg, a pediatric anesthesiologist at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, died Thursday of prostate cancer at his Northwest Baltimore home. He was 50. "Mark was a superbly talented anesthesiologist and a masterful clinician-educator, but above all he was the consummate pediatrician," said Dr. Edward D. Miller, dean of the medical faculty and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Worshipful biographies of great surgeons are so common that one must really be special to merit attention.This one is.For 30 years, W. Hardy Hendren III, surgical chief at that mecca of pediatrics, the Children's Hospital of Boston, has been saving nature's smallest victims.He creates order inside the chaotic bodies of babies tormented by catastrophic birth defects, rebuilding them from the bottom up.So spectacular are the Harvard surgeon's results that colleagues at conferences have accused him of conning them with bogus before and-after slides.

Baltimore resident Sean Harris has grown accustomed to seeing doctors and staff at the Children's Hospital at Sinai; they've provided care for his 3-year-old son, Sean Jr., who in March was diagnosed with a brain tumor. On Sunday morning, Harris and his extended family took part in Sinai's seventh annual Race for Our Kids. The family met up with pediatric oncologist Yoram Unguru, who is currently treating Sean Jr.'s brain tumor. It turned out to be a family gathering - of wives, siblings, aunts, cousins, children, siblings and children.

PHILADELPHIA -- Children who are born weighing less than about 3 pounds have more medical and behavior problems at school age than children who start out life at a normal size, a new study has found.The study, centered at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, offers one of the most complete pictures to date of what happens later in life to babies who are born so tiny that they spend their early days just struggling to survive."Children under 3 pounds are two to three times more likely to have problems" when they reach school age compared with children who weigh more than 5 1/2 pounds at birth, said Dr. Marie McCormick, a former Children's Hospital researcher now at the Harvard School of Public Health.

John Milton McIntyre, a retired orthopedic surgeon whose operations allowed patients to regain the use of their hands, died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at his home in the northern section of Roland Park. He was 67. He was born in Cumberland and raised in Westernport, where his father was owner and general manager of the McIntyre Bakery. He spent his summers on Deep Creek Lake, where his family had a cottage. After graduating as valedictorian of Bruce High School in 1960, he earned a degree in chemistry at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Sinks are for sale. So are defibrillators, refrigerated body boxes, organ scales and autopsy tables.Also up for grabs at the Liberty Medical Center liquidation sale are portable blood pressure units and X-ray equipment.The sale, which began Dec. 2 for medical professionals, was opened to the public last week. It will run through the end of next month, said Frank S. Long, vice president of National Content Liquidators Inc., an Ohio-based company that handles up to seven hospital liquidations annually.

From the time parents bring their newborn home until they send a teen-ager off into the world, bedtime tests their patience and their willpower.For children, unlike their parents, sleep isn't a respite. It's deprivation, an interruption to all the excitement of the day. They don't want to go to bed.Though sleep seems to be something that should come easily and naturally, most children have to be taught to sleep the way the rest of us do -- in their beds and at night."Ninety percent of the kids I see are normal, average kids," says Dr. Marcel Duray, director of the Sleep-Wake Disorder Center at Miami Children's Hospital.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- In what doctors are calling a medical miracle, a healthy baby boy was born yesterday to an Oakland woman who had lain brain-dead in a hospital bed for 3 1/2 months.Doctors at Highland Hospital delivered the 32-week-old infant by Caesarean-section at 12:20 p.m. yesterday, about two hours after Trisha Marshall's blood pressure dropped precipitously, threatening the baby's safety. But there were no complications during the surgery and the 4-pound, 15-ounce infant came out kicking and screaming.

PHILADELPHIA -- Hours after the surgery that gave Angela Lakeberg most of a heart she had shared with her Siamese twin sister, the infant showed signs of continued improvement -- enough to fuel her parents' hopes that she might defy the odds.The 7-week-old baby reportedly was sucking her thumb, wetting diapers and squeezing her parents' fingers yesterday. But the ultimate delight, said a beaming Kenneth Lakeberg during a morning news conference: "Her eyes were open. . . . It was unbelievable!"

Johns Hopkins Medicine said Tuesday that it plans to acquire a Florida children's hospital in a deal that industry experts said would bolster the prestigious Baltimore health system's visibility in the highly specialized pediatric field. The deal with All Children's Hospital & Health System of St. Petersburg, Fla., would put one of the nation's 45 standalone children's hospitals under the Hopkins banner and mark Hopkins' first acquisition outside the Baltimore-Washington region.

John Milton McIntyre, a retired orthopedic surgeon whose operations allowed patients to regain the use of their hands, died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at his home in the northern section of Roland Park. He was 67. He was born in Cumberland and raised in Westernport, where his father was owner and general manager of the McIntyre Bakery. He spent his summers on Deep Creek Lake, where his family had a cottage. After graduating as valedictorian of Bruce High School in 1960, he earned a degree in chemistry at the University of Maryland, College Park.

John Milton McIntyre, a retired orthopedic surgeon whose operations allowed patients to regain the use of their hands, died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at his home in the northern section of Roland Park. He was 67. He was born in Cumberland and raised in Westernport, where his father was owner and general manager of the McIntyre Bakery. He spent his summers on Deep Creek Lake, where his family had a cottage. After graduating as valedictorian of Bruce High School in 1960, he earned a degree in chemistry at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Holiday pictures, with the kids decked out in their red and green finest, might be one of the first things to go by the wayside as parents attempt to care for a critically ill child. But a trio of photographers brought the photo studio to the children Saturday at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital, where nurses and moms primped and fussed over the children, hiding breathing tubes and the wires from heart monitors in order to get that perfect holiday portrait. And, thanks to the generosity of a program called Help Portrait, the finished pictures will be free.

Lung transplants - a treatment of last resort for cystic fibrosis - are rarely beneficial to children with that condition and are often harmful, according to a study released last week. Among 248 children who received a lung transplant over an 11-year period, only one clearly benefited while 167 were at a higher risk of dying after the procedure, Utah researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Julian Allen of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia called the findings "startling" in an editorial in the journal.

Hopkins Children's Center ranked 3rd In its first ranking of the nation's best children's hospitals, U.S. News & World Report has awarded third place to the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Topping the list is Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, followed by Children's Hospital Boston. Since 1990, the magazine has ranked "America's Best Hospitals," with Johns Hopkins topping the list each year. As part of that, there have been rankings of pediatric departments at various hospitals -- Hopkins has always been in the top four -- but those were based solely on reputation.

Johns Hopkins Medicine said Tuesday that it plans to acquire a Florida children's hospital in a deal that industry experts said would bolster the prestigious Baltimore health system's visibility in the highly specialized pediatric field. The deal with All Children's Hospital & Health System of St. Petersburg, Fla., would put one of the nation's 45 standalone children's hospitals under the Hopkins banner and mark Hopkins' first acquisition outside the Baltimore-Washington region.

Troubled by large losses and a small patient count, New Children's Hospital announced yesterday that it has successfully concluded its search for a larger partner and has signed a letter of intent to join the North Arundel Health System.New Children's is licensed for 76 beds, of which 10.7 percent were occupied on an average day during the past fiscal year, according to state reports."We need a larger partner to continue to exist," said Agnes P. Nicholas, New Children's director of public relations and development.

Doctors fail to diagnose high blood pressure in more than three-quarters of children with the problem, putting them at risk for heart disease and other organ damage later in life, a new study suggests. Calculating elevated blood pressure in children is more complicated than in adults, and many doctors might not bother evaluating kids' pressure because they assume hypertension is an adult problem, the study found. "Hypertension is a disease that doesn't cause symptoms, particularly in children," said Dr. Richard Lange, chief of clinical cardiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who did not participate in the study.