Dear Friends

Have you ever looked at something innovative, something outside-the-box, and wondered, “What made someone think of that?” This issue of Strong Kids is virtually filled with outside-the-box ideas, technology, and events that make the lives of our region’s children and families better. Imagine putting a magnetic rod into the back of a child with scoliosis and using remote controls to allow that child to grow straight and tall. Just think of inviting teenagers with chronic illness and disability to a prom staged just for them. How about correcting the heart rhythm of a fetus by giving medication to the mother? Or raising money to build a children’s hospital while selling groceries and t-shirts and appliances? Or holding a party to finance a machine that will keep hundreds of children with heart defects alive? And picture a 1960’s jazz, R&B, and disco group coming to Rochester, NY, just so supporters of the children’s hospital can dance the night away! How did anyone come up with any of those?

It is all about creativity. Creativity is what keeps Golisano Children’s Hospital doing what it has done for this community for decades – ensuring the health of the children of this region now and long into the future. Whether we and our community partners are coming up with new fundraising strategies or bringing our educational technologies up to the level of current digital and networking capabilities or discovering new ways to make and keep children healthy, we succeed because of our creativity.

Bringing creativity to real-world fruition takes three very important things: an adventurous and energetic spirit, the time and willingness to try it again if you fail the first time, and the finances that allow you to take a risk on something outside-the-box. For example, if you are in manufacturing, you only make what you already know you can sell unless you have the spirit of adventure (nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say), the time for research and development until you get it right, and the capital to develop and market your new idea. It is the same way in academic medicine. We have no shortage of doctors and nurses and therapists and social workers with fantastic, outside-the-box ideas. And we have no shortage of energy and spirit. But it is only through endowment for salaries, for programs, for training that these wonderful, energetic people can afford the time for and the risk of trying something brand new that may not work exactly right the first time. The first Golisano Children’s Hospital prom, the recruitment of Dr. Vinocur, the development of the magnetic growing rod used by Dr. Sanders, the campaign that brought Walmart stores to us with an unparalleled commitment, all required investment and a willingness to try something new.

We have more frontiers to cross and more barriers to put behind us. I know we can count on you to keep us creative into the future!