Y is for Young Lives

It is one of UCSF's best-kept secrets: Each day more than 100 children are hospitalized at UCSF Children's Hospital.

This 145-bed hospital-within-a-hospital includes three inpatient floors and one floor of outpatient services, as well as child-focused centers for pediatric cardiology, surgery, ophthalmology and other specialties.

Although UCSF has long been known for the quality of its children's medical services - it is one of the birthplaces of neonatal intensive care - it was only in the fall of 2001 that a new state law allowed the name "Children's Hospital" to be affixed to a physical space within the UCSF Medical Center on Parnassus Heights. While the name may be new, the range of activities and personnel the hospital encompasses is not. More than 150 pediatric specialists in 45 medical, surgical and related disciplines, as well as hundreds of nurses, child-life specialists, physical therapists, social workers and technical staff continue to be dedicated to children's health. Examples abound. It was pediatric immunologists at UCSF who pioneered life-extending treatments for children with HIV/AIDS. It was UCSF pediatric surgeons who performed the world's first successful operation on a fetus. And it was UCSF child neurologists who were among the founders of modern child neurology. UCSF Children's Hospital also operates more than 60 outreach clinics from San Luis Obispo to the Oregon border. Most recently, UCSF has joined forces with UC Davis to establish a pediatric heart center in Sacramento. The goal, as always, is to use the strengths of a teaching hospital to bring the most advanced treatments to the most vulnerable patients.

by Jeff Miller