The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

CHOP

Front wideshot view of The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is one of the largest and oldest children's hospitals in the world, and United States' first hospital dedicated to the healthcare of children.

History

In 1855, Philadelphia had a population of about 460,000, and recorded 10,507 deaths. Leading causes of death were smallpox, typhoid, and scarlet fever. In the worst month of 1855, 300 children under 12 years old died, primarily of infectious diseases. A Philadelphia physician, Dr. Francis West Lewis, inspired by a visit to the new Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London (founded 1852), enlisted Drs. T. Hewson Bache and R.A.F. Penrose to found the first children's hospital in North America.

  • 1855 - On November 23, 1855 the following small advertisement appeared in the Philadelphia Public Ledger:

    The Children's Hospital—located on Blight Street, running from Pine to Lombard, below Broad, is now open for the reception of Patients. Children suffering from Acute Diseases and Accidents will be received free of charge. A dispensary, for sick children, is also attached to the Hospital and will be open at the same place every day, (Sundays excepted from 11 to 12 o'clock, when advice and medicine will be given free of charge.)
    The first location of the original Children's Hospital was a small building on Blight Street (now Watts St). The hospital consisted of 12 beds and a dispensary. That year they recorded 67 inpatient admissions and 306 outpatient visits.

  • 1866 - Children’s Hospital was relocated to 22nd Street between Locust and Walnut Sts after the American Civil War. This hospital consisted of 35 beds and a dispensary.

  • 1870 - Surgery was being performed.

  • 1892 - Capacity was increased to 94 beds by 1892.

  • 1900 - The Catherwood Milk Laboratory was established.

  • 1914 - The first Department for the Prevention of Disease in the nation was established.

  • 1916 - Construction adjacent to the 2nd hospital was begun in 1913 and the first unit was opened in 1916 extending toward 18th and Bainbridge Sts. In 1919 the hospital became affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The affiliation became steadily closer over the next 17 years, with the Children's Hospital becoming identical to the pediatric department of the school of medicine, with most of the attending physicians appointed jointly to both institutions.

  • 1923 - Whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine was first developed.

  • 1937 - The first formal allocation of funds to research was recorded in 1937.

  • 1937 - The first closed incubator for newborns was used.

  • 1962 - Dr. C. Everett Koop opened the first neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in the nation, along with a new neonatal surgical unit.

  • 1965 - The first home care program for children was established.

  • 1974 - Construction of the new hospital at a new site on the west side of the Schuylkill River at 34th Street and Civic Center Boulevard, adjacent to the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, was begun in 1969 and the first building was opened in 1974. This present Children's Hospital complex occupies part of the site of the old Philadelphia General Hospital and Blockley Almshouse.

  • 2005 - CHOP celebrated its 150th anniversary on November 18, 2005.

  • Milestones and advances in pediatric care pioneered at CHOP include the first formal medical training in pediatrics, techniques for the correction of congenital heart malformations, incubators for newborn intensive care, home ventilator care, and vaccine development.

  • The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is in Philadelphia's University City neighborhood, and since 2001 has been undergoing a $1.5 billion expansion that has doubled the hospital's size, while also building more than one million square feet of new research and outpatient facilities on a large, eight acre site south of the main hospital on Civic Center Boulevard. The South Campus expansion includes the eleven-story Colket Translational Research Building, which will provide lab space for the Center for Childhood Cancer Research and the Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics. The new South Campus will also include an underground parking garage and an ambulatory care building with outpatient services.

  • This South Campus expansion adjoins the University of Pennsylvania Health System's construction of the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine and Roberts Proton Therapy Center.

  • 2.10.2016 - My son Nathan Munker was admitted to the hospital in active Congestive Heart Failure. He was born with Complete Atrioventricular Canal defect (CAVC), Atrial Septal Defect, and Ventricular Septal Defect.

  • 2.16.2016 - Nathan Munker underwent open heart surgery by Dr. Thomas L Spray at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The surgery was a complete success and my son will now live a long happy life.

Collage of pictures of my son Nathan Munker

This project was supposed to be just a first step into my new career field, to essentially show how to do a quick basic layout with HTML / CSS utilizing Bootstrap. I was asked to make a tribute page, I could not in good conscience choose some random movie star or band.

I wanted this to mean something to me, so I spent 2 days on something that took me just about 1 hour to make in total. I could not decide if I wanted to do it on Dr. Spray, or the staff of the hospital, or even just my Son and all he has gone through. In the end I decided on the hospital in a whole. Without the facility and the pioneering founding fathers who opened the doors in the first place, who knows what would have become of Nathan..

It’s unlikely this will ever reach the hospital, the staff or Dr. Spray, but thank you for giving my Son a chance.