. The ways that researchers in Yale pediatrics have helped to improve the health care of children -- and the contributions they hope to make in the future -- were among the topics of conversation on Nov. 1, when the School of Medicine celebrated the 75th anniversary of its pediatrics department with a scientific symposium and the dedication of the new Child Health Research Center.
When it was first launched in 1921, Yale's department of pediatrics was one of the first in the nation. Its mission was to increase clinical scholarship in pediatrics and to decrease the vulnerability of children to injury and disease. Yale researchers have done a "remarkable" job of fulfilling that mission, according to Dr. Howard A. Pearson, professor of pediatrics, who chaired the department 1972-85. "It's always had an impact, far out of proportion to its size, on American pediatrics," he comments.
Department members have conducted groundbreaking research, developed new treatments and programs, and trained hundreds of house officers and medical students who went on to careers in research, in academic medicine and in pediatric practice, he notes. Many have also held joint appointments at Yale-New Haven Hospital or its forerunners, the New Haven and Grace hospitals.
Today, many once-devastating diseases are under control, says Dr. Pearson, and effective programs that were once unheard of are standard. Some of the ways in which, over the decades, department members have had an impact include:
Dr. Joseph B. Warshaw, deputy dean for clinical affairs who has chaired the department since 1985, says that Yale pediatrics is "poised to advance even further in the next 75 years." In fact, the new Yale Child Health Research Center will house a community of physicians and scientists who are dedicated to unraveling the molecular basis of childhood diseases now and in the years ahead, he adds.
"The past 75 years embrace the history of modern pediatrics, and the discoveries at Yale and elsewhere have spectacularly altered the burden of death and diseases of childhood. This era of biologic and technical discovery developed an entirely new vocabulary of molecular medicine and modern diagnostic technologies," Dr. Warshaw points out.
"During the next 75 years, research conducted in this new center and at similar centers throughout the world, hopefully, will have identified serious risk factors for cancer and cardiovascular diseases that will provide greater rationale for effective pediatric care," Dr. Warshaw predicts. "We will have vaccines for pediatric diseases, including those to prevent autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes. Progress in the neurosciences will allow most mental retardation to be understood and, in many cases, prevented. We will have effective therapies for mental illness in children. We will look back on the epidemic of AIDS and other infectious diseases as we now look back now on the black plague. We will have an array of diagnostic intervention that will make pediatric surgery, as we know it, obsolete. We will have diagnostic and treatment modalities based on information technologies that will provide almost instantaneous diagnosis and, in many cases, treatment."
Located at 464 Congress Ave. -- the former May Coat Co. building -- the 17,000-square-foot center encompasses five laboratories and supporting areas, academic offices and library/journal reading areas. In addition, the Friends of the Children's Hospital at Yale New Haven donated a conference room, which has been named the Joseph B. Warshaw Conference Room. Most of the artwork that decorates the center was created by children in four New Haven public elementary schools: The Lincoln- Bassett School, Vincent E. Mauro School, Prince School and the Welch- Annex.
Scientists in the Yale department of pediatrics will interact with colleagues in the departments of biology, cell biology, genetics, and cellular and molecular physiology, the sections of immunobiology and neurobiology, and other basic science programs, participating in research along programmatic lines. Yale medical faculty are pursuing pediatric research projects in the genetic factors and molecular menchanisms related to the development and treatment of a variety of health disorders.