Hospital, Doctor Devoted to Care

* Recently one television reporter motioned toward our doors and told his viewers that within the walls of Children’s Hospital of Orange County, every patient room contains a compelling story. He apologized for only having time to tell three of them.

Every year the number of those “stories” increases. During the past dozen months, we’ve had about 150,000 inpatient and outpatient visits, lifting our 33-year total to 1.6 million.

Your readers have become familiar with some of our stories--the sickle cell anemia patient who baked cupcakes for the blood donors who keep him alive, the children whose self-imposed isolation has been wedged open by a pet therapy dog, the Costa Mesa girl whose meningococcemia was kept at bay in our intensive-care unit.

Today, though, I am writing about a different kind of story (“Clash With Specialist Worsens CHOC’s Woes,” May 21), which profiles our financial strains and leadership transitions.

While children continue to be treated successfully every day for diseases that can weaken and even kill them, we in CHOC administration are pressing ahead, guided by an aggressive strategic plan that will propel the hospital through the turbulence of marketplace changes, creating new efficiencies and alliances, while allowing us to maintain and strengthen our leadership position in pediatric care.

As the acting CEO, I will let nothing compromise our commitment to the highest level of patient care. As evidence of that quality, our Mission Viejo children’s hospital recently received a perfect score evaluation from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations.

Children do come FIRST here. Take a tour and you’ll readily see that our counter and bathroom sinks are built low to the ground so patients won’t feel dwarfed and lost in our halls. But what makes us special--the recreation therapists, the ever-vigilant nurses, the color-dappled walls, the pharmacists who recognize that one size of medication does not fit all, our outstanding medical staff--also makes us more expensive than hospitals built for adults.

Sometimes it’s a frustrating experience explaining to HMOs yet again why children need more intensive nursing care than adults (for one, unlike adults, many children can’t ring a buzzer when they need attention).

That discouragement can be eased, though. All you have to do is stand out front and watch a baby--heavier and healthy now, months after its premature birth--get ready to go home for the very first time. The mother cradles her child in an infant car seat as the father wheels away from the curb. Nurses dab their eyes and so would you.

CHOC has played an important role in caring for the children in Orange County and surrounding counties, and we are committed to continuing this role in the years ahead.

KIMBERLY CRIPE

Acting Chief Executive Officer

Orange

* On Nov. 6, 1992, my life, and that of my family, was changed forever. My son, Darren, had a subdural brain hemorrhage on the football field at the age of 16. He was rushed to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in a coma and immediately underwent brain surgery to stop the bleeding. He survived the surgery, but the doctors had another concern, a low white count. After several attempts to bring up his count, an oncologist was brought in to do a bone marrow aspiration, which showed Darren also had leukemia.

Darren’s doctors at Mission Hospital contacted the oncology department at CHOC. Because my oldest daughter worked in trauma prevention, she knew who to contact to find who the best oncologist was in Orange County. A call was put into Tom Jones, the CEO of CHOC, and he hooked us up with Dr. Mitchell Cairo. Who would know better than the CEO of CHOC who was his best oncologist?

Dr. Cairo did not become a pediatric oncologist because he wanted a job . . . but because he has made a commitment to children with cancer!

Dr. Cairo deserves our trust and most of all our respect. The people of Orange County that are fortunate enough to live here with the fine doctors, nurses and staff right here in our backyard are truly blessed. I’m asking all of you for your allegiance for all the children that have cancer now and that will be diagnosed in the future. I believe in the vision and genius of Dr. Mitchell Cairo.

CHARLENE WEDERTZ

Mission Viejo

* Re the excellent and well-balanced articles on Dr. Mitchell Cairo:

I think we all feel a little saddened and diminished--whether physician, patient or parent--by the revelations regarding pioneer CHOC doctor Mitchell Cairo. Whether any of the allegations are true or not may mask a more important story. In the world of managed care controlled by HMOs, businessmen and insurance companies, is there any longer a place for a courageous, determined and never-say-die physician? The doctor who puts his career and reputation on the line for his patients or refuses to let someone die because of bottom-line considerations may be something of the past.

Regardless of our personal feelings about Dr. Cairo or other risk-taking maverick researchers, these are the traits of scientists who have led the way to develop new lifesaving technologies. Under managed care, these types of courageous physicians and researchers may become extinct, like dinosaurs, because industry no longer wants to foot the bill.

My comments are not meant to praise or censure Dr. Cairo but to remind us that good health care should transcend the current national obsession with low cost and high profits. This cheapens and lessens us all.

MICHAEL A. GLUECK, MD

Newport Beach

* I am responding to acknowledge my respect and admiration for Dr. Mitchell Cairo at CHOC.

I have worked closely with him for many years as a nurse specialist, and he has always had the highest standards for research, for projects/tasks and, most importantly, for patient care. He is very devoted and brilliant. I have witnessed many times that he has provided all options, thorough informed consent and excellent clinical care for patients and their frailties.

He has always been an outstanding teacher and mentor and has supported the growth of all the staff who work with him. The hematology/oncology/BMT program at CHOC has expanded and has become well-recognized because of Dr. Cairo’s hard work, dedication and passion to care for children with cancer, placing us always on the cutting edge of pediatric oncology care.

It would be a great loss to Orange County if Dr. Cairo should leave CHOC due to frivolous, unfounded allegations and unwarranted scrutiny.

RITA SECOLA

Tustin