Dr. Ralph Feigin Celebrates 25 Years of Championing Children

The year was 1977. Jimmy Carter was president; the space shuttle Enterprise made its first test glide; a first-class postage stamp cost 13 cents; "Rocky" won the Academy Award for best picture; and "Saturday Night Fever" had the nation in a disco craze.

In Houston, a struggling pediatric hospital whose leadership knew the hospital had the right stuff to become something great, had just recruited an ambitious physician in chief who was not yet 40.

The new chief would become part of one of the greatest growth stories in health care - a nearly bankrupt specialty hospital that became the nation's largest pediatric hospital and one of the most renowned in the world. Its administrators, physicians, nurses and support staff all contributed to the hospital's rise to renown with groundbreaking procedures and unflagging dedication to medicine's tiniest patients, quickly building a reputation for the hospital as the place to be for sick children.

The young physician was Ralph D. Feigin, M.D., whose dedication to pediatric medicine would make him an internationally acclaimed infectious disease specialist. Feigin, who has spent his entire career dedicated to the health and medical well-being of children, is celebrating 25 years as the physician in chief at Texas Children's and as a professor and chairman of the department of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, which is affiliated with Texas Children's.

Also Baylor's president, Feigin is a noted physician, author, teacher and researcher who helped lead Texas Children's as the hospital grew and developed.

"It's impossible to measure the impact that Dr. Feigin has had on Texas Children's Hospital in his 25-year tenure," said Mark A. Wallace, president and CEO of Texas Children's. "However, if you could take a snapshot of Texas Children's and then roll forward 25 years, you could see the incredible growth in the hospital's size, the number of children and families that we take care of annually, and the programmatic and qualitative enhancement and improvement at Texas Children's during Dr. Feigin's tenure. I'm very proud to say that I've been able to work with a person of Dr. Feigin's extraordinary skills," Wallace said.

During Feigin's tenure, the hospital built numerous clinical care centers rated among the best in the United States, including the Texas Children's Newborn Center, which is the largest and busiest neonatal care service in the nation; the Texas Children's Heart Center, which has surgical survival rates nearing 100 percent; and Texas Children's Cancer Center and Hematology Service, the largest pediatric cancer center in the Southwest and one of the largest in the nation.

The hospital's 40 additional pediatric subspecialties, offering treatment for virtually every pediatric illness or injury, have served millions of patients over the past half-century.

Texas Children's also rose quickly in national hospital rankings, breaking into the top 10 pediatric hospitals the last three years running, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, and placing in the top five in Child magazine's ranking of best pediatric hospitals.

"When I came to Texas Children's in 1977, it was my intent to participate in building a pre-eminent children's hospital and world-class department of pediatrics," Feigin said. "I knew that with the kind of support that had been conveyed to me by both the board of trustees and by the community prior to my arrival that anything was possible."

Texas Children's now is completing one of the largest expansions in its history, including a new 16-story outpatient Clinical Care Center and the expansion of the West Tower to a 20-story inpatient facility.

In addition to his leadership roles at Texas Children's and Baylor, Feigin has taught thousands of young physicians and cared for countless patients.

He has authored more than 400 articles or chapters in medical journals and books, and has written or co-written more than a dozen books. In addition, he is editor in chief of Seminars in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and associate editor of Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"If you look at the impact that Dr. Feigin has had on medicine, particularly pediatrics, his reach extends beyond a regional basis; he's impacted pediatrics throughout the United States and even globally," Wallace said. "He truly has made a lasting impression on the care of children, and I wish him nothing but the best for the next 25 years."

In honor of Feigin's anniversary, the city of Houston and Harris County recently passed resolutions declaring "Dr. Ralph D. Feigin Day."

A New York City native, Feigin holds a bachelor's degree from Columbia College and medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine. He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Boston University in 1998.

---

©2006 Texas Medical Center

---

E-Mail: tmcinfo@texmedctr.tmc.edu
URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/09_15_02/page_01.html