Child Health, 2022

Isabelle’s stay in the Intensive Care Nursery (ICN) at Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (CHaD) began just hours after she was born prematurely at 33 weeks. She received top-notch care from CHaD’s ICN team members, who are experts in their field and amazing at what they do. Isabelle’s nurses and doctors not only cared for her, they cared for us as well. They always took time to thoroughly answer our questions and keep us informed about how Isabelle was doing and what we could expect. They went out of their way to ensure we were hands-on members of her team. Today, Isabelle is four years old and thriving. We will always be grateful for the care Isabelle received from Dartmouth Health Children’s.”

—Elizabeth and Richard, Isabelle’s parents

Stopping

Starts

Healing the Hurt:

Trauma-Informed Treatment for Vulnerable Youth

In 1893, the first patient at Mary Hitch cock Memorial Hospital—located at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC)—was a pediatric patient: a 13-year-old girl treated for a hip condi tion. Fast forward almost 100 years to 1992, when the Children’s Hospital at DHMC (CHaD) was officially recognized as New Hampshire’s only children’s hospital. This summer, we celebrated 30 years of CHaD delivering the best patient and family centered care for children.

Thank You to Our Donors

Anchored by CHaD, Dartmouth Health Children’s has grown to offer specialized pediatric healthcare across the region—thanks to the generosity of donors, friends, and volunteers like you. Revenue from clinical sources like insurance doesn’t come close to covering the expenses of standard care, and many of our vital programs and services are funded entirely through philanthropy.

The Boyle Program: 25 Years of Connection and Compassion

In these pages you’ll find examples of the impact of your support. You help us conduct life-saving child health research in collaboration with our partners at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Dartmouth Cancer Center; improve healthcare delivery; address the youth mental health crisis affecting kids nationwide; continue the community-building and physician-training work begun 25 years ago by Dr. Bill Boyle; and so much more.

CONTRIBUTORS

Lauren Seidman

Sharon Tregaskis

DESIGN PRODUCTION

Farah R. Doyle

PHOTOGRAPHY

Front and back covers, inside front cover, inside back cover, and pages 2 and 5 by Kata Sasvari. Pages 3, 6-7, and 8 by Mark Washburn.

PRODUCED BY Medical & Healthcare Advancement

One Medical Center Drive, HB 7070

Lebanon, NH 03756-0001

DHGeiselGiving.org

As we look toward the future, we see dozens of opportunities to further meet the needs of the communities we serve. We must grow and update our facilities at Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics Manchester and at CHaD, so that every child can receive the care they need close to home. We must do more to help children who struggle with mental health conditions and those living with intellectual and developmental disorders like autism. And we must make groundbreaking strides in child health research that will improve the lives of children locally, regionally, and globally.

Every gift, large and small, contributes to our goal of helping all children live their healthiest, happiest lives. Thank you for your ongoing support.

In gratitude,

Keith J. Loud, MD, MSc

Physician-in-Chief, Dartmouth Health Children’s Chair and Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Geisel School of Medicine

STOPPING PEDIATRIC CANCER

Before It Starts

by Sharon Tregaskis

Channing Connor doesn’t let Bloom syndrome keep him on the bench. This past summer he stepped up to the plate every weekend with his local baseball league.

Seven-year-old

Channing Connor is a walking, talking encyclopedia on the RMS Titanic, the British ocean liner that sank in 1912 during its maiden voyage across the North Atlantic. Previously, dinosaurs captured his imagination. “He is very informational,” says his mother, Kirsten Connor, who notes that his favorite color, movie, and book change by the day, but his passion for Minecraft hasn’t waned. This spring, she signed Channing up with Goffstown Junior Baseball, their local league, so he could start learning

the rules of the national pastime. And he’s campaigning for horseback lessons. “He’s just a crazy little boy who does everything that other kids do,” says his mom.

Channing was gearing up for his fifth birthday celebration when Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns shuffled his annual physical to July. By the time he saw his pediatrician, Channing had the butterfly-shaped rash across his nose and cheeks that plagues him every summer. The pediatrician referred Channing to Dartmouth Health Children’s

dermatologist Jillian Rork, MD, for a closer look. Rork diagnosed Channing with Bloom syndrome, a rare, inherited genetic condition associated with heightened sensitivity to the sun and small stature. More ominously, people with Bloom syndrome have a radically higher risk of developing cancer—as much as 300 times that of the general population.

“Reading about it online, I really freaked out,” says Kirsten, who credits Rork with helping her come to terms with the diagnosis. She also joined online support groups

to connect with other families coping with Bloom. While the average lifespan of people with Bloom syndrome is just 27 years old, in one of those online groups Kirsten met a person with the condition who lived into her mid-forties. “That was really hopeful,” she says.

A patient-centered approach to research and care

Every three months since Channing’s diagnosis, the Connors have made the 30-minute drive from their Goffstown home to Dartmouth

Hitchcock Clinics Manchester, where Channing has bloodwork and ultrasounds to screen him for signs of cancer. Every six months, he alternates between appointments with his regular pediatrician and one of the pediatric hematologistoncologists at Dartmouth Health Children’s.

This spring, Channing had his first appointment with Bonnie Lau, MD, PhD, an expert in genetic conditions that increase a child’s risk of developing cancer, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine, and the pediatric lead for

From left to right: Bonnie Lau, MD, PhD, in her lab with research technician Tingting Huang, MS

Dartmouth Cancer Center’s Precision Prevention initiative.

For Kirsten, who has had to explain Channing’s diagnosis and risk factors to unfamiliar medical providers at urgent care appointments, meeting Lau was reassuring. “She was really nice, had read through his reports, and seemed like she knew about Bloom syndrome,” says Kirsten. “It made me feel more comfortable.”

Rare diseases like Bloom, as well as the other cancer predisposition conditions Lau investigates—Fanconi Anemia, Diamond Blackfan Anemia, and Shwachman Diamond syndrome—can be hard for pediatricians to recognize. And without a diagnosis, children don’t receive the kind of screening Channing gets to detect cancer at its earliest stages, when it’s easiest and most effective to treat, with the fewest side effects. Patients

and their families have played a powerful role in shaping her approach to research and clinical care, says Lau. “Families are always asking, Do you hear of any new things to help these children, to prevent the cancer, or improve other aspects of their disease? ”

To promote early diagnosis of cancer predisposition syndromes, Lau prioritizes outreach to the pediatricians who form the first line of defense in children’s healthcare. To help them tune in to the physical symptoms and family history details associated with cancer predisposition syndromes, Lau has begun developing screening prompts that could be incorporated into electronic health records, much like those already used to detect autism and ADHD. She’s also working to build the genetic testing capacity necessary to speed diagnoses and help scientists in Dartmouth’s medical

community drill deeper into population-scale genetic data. Already, such genetic analyses have helped Lau identify the specific mutations associated with bone marrow failure among children with Fanconi Anemia.

Advances fueled by philanthropy

In her lab, Lau investigates the unique molecular pathways by which the conditions she studies increase a child’s risk of cancer. With pilot funding from the Hitchcock Foundation, she developed a mouse model of Fanconi Anemia (FA), an inherited genetic disease that can lead to bone marrow failure and certain types of cancer. Using the model, she and her team have begun testing novel drugs that can support the immune system of a child with FA to detect and suppress cancer cells.

More recently, awards from Hyundai and the

Child Health Research at Dartmouth and Dartmouth Health

Asthma, allergies, autism, obesity, leukemia, and many other diseases are on the rise in children in the U.S.

At Dartmouth and Dartmouth Health, we are committed to figuring out why and conducting the rigorous science needed to inform policies and personal decisions and to protect children’s health.

Learn more about Bonnie Lau’s work in Precision Cancer Prevention at dartgo.org/prevention-video2.

Brock Christensen, PhD

Hood Foundation have funded her work to identify new treatment strategies for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a blood cancer with a particularly poor prognosis due to its resistance and toxicities to currently available chemotherapy. “These diagnoses used to be considered rare,” says Lau. But increasingly, genetic evidence suggests that among children with AML, as many as 20% have genetic conditions that increase a person’s risk of developing cancer. “If we can identify children with increased cancer risk early, we can prevent misdiagnoses and hospitalizations.”

For some children with FA, cancer prevention is already a possibility—active screening allows doctors to detect precancerous cells and recommend a bone marrow transplant before leukemia develops. Lau’s work helps further narrow their focus to the highest-risk mutations.

For conditions like Bloom, early diagnosis and frequent screening give children their best chance for a bright future. His mom works hard to help Channing embrace the world, unfettered by worries about his health. “He’s heard me say he has Bloom syndrome,” says Kirsten. “I explained that we passed along something and doctors just wanted to keep a closer eye on him.”

And discover how scientists, physicians, and students at Geisel’s Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center and the C. Everett Koop Institute are also finding ways to stop diseases before they start.

Learn more at dartgo.org/childrenshealth-video.

If you’d like to support child health research at Dartmouth or Dartmouth Health, please contact:

Polly Antol, director of development for child health initiatives 603-646-5316 or Polly. Antol@Hitchcock.org.

Channing often sees Dartmouth Health Children’s hematologist-oncologist Julie Kim, MD. To ease the burden of fitting so many medical appointments on the Connor family calendar, Kim and his mom schedule all of his bloodwork, ultrasounds, and other screenings a year ahead.

Diane Gilbert-Diamond,

YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

by Lauren Seidman

In the autumn of 2021, the nation’s leading pedi atric experts declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health. A few weeks later, Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy MD, MBA, the U.S. Surgeon General, issued an advisory on the youth mental health crisis, declaring, “Our obligation to act is not just medical—it’s moral.”

Throughout the Dartmouth academic medical community, caregivers and researchers are coming together to find answers for our children. The stories that follow illustrate two examples of these efforts. Both projects present innovative ways to improve access to mental health supports and get kids the help they need, where and when they need it.

you’d like to support initiatives that address the youth mental health crisis, contact Polly Antol, director of development for child health initiatives.

Molly H., an LNA on the pediatric inpatient unit at CHaD, works with an adolescent patient on mental health interventions developed as part of the I*CARE project.

I*CARE

A Bold New Approach to Helping Kids in Distress

Pediatric hospitalist JoAnna Leyenaar, MD, MPH, PhD, noticed when the hospital beds began to fill with different sorts of kids. They came to the emergency department (ED) not with stomach aches and respiratory illnesses, but with anxi ety, depression, and thoughts of suicide. When these children presented with injuries, they were self-inflicted.

“Over the last five years, pediatric mental health boarding—the practice of holding youth in emer gency departments or medical units until an inpatient psychiatric bed opens up—became increasingly common across the country,” says Leyenaar, who is also vice chair of research and an associate professor in the Department of Pedi atrics at the Geisel School of Medicine, and an associate professor of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice. “Now, it’s one of the most common reasons for hospital medicine to be providing care here at CHaD.”

To gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon, Leyenaar worked with graduate students and colleagues from The Dartmouth Institute to conduct a literature review and then survey pediatric hospitalists. They discovered that children were regularly boarding in EDs for much longer than the recommended four hours—some U.S. children have spent weeks in an ED waiting for

a bed in an inpatient psychiatric facility—and that none of the papers on the subject were solution focused.

Leyenaar’s findings were published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in December 2021—just days after the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory on the youth mental health crisis, and a month after Leyenaar helped launch I*CARE: Improving Care – Accelerating Recovery & Education.

The right care, when it’s needed most

In 2020, a gift to the Geisel School of Medicine from Susan and Richard Levy, PhD, D’60 established the Susan & Richard Levy Health Care Delivery Incubator, a joint initiative between Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Health and based at The Dartmouth Institute. The Incubator supports projects focused on improving patient outcomes, prioritizing patient- and family-centered care, reducing spending, and promoting scholarly work.

I*CARE was included in the second cohort of Incubator projects. Led by Leyenaar and Robert Brady, PhD, the director of the Anxiety Disorders Service at DHMC and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Geisel, I*CARE utilizes technology and licensed nursing assistants (LNAs) to begin delivering mental health care to kids while they’re boarding.

“Mental health interventions traditionally aren’t consistently delivered during boarding because there aren’t enough clinicians to deliver them,” says Brady. “With I*CARE, we’ve

From left to right: Robert Brady, PhD, and JoAnna Leyenaar, MD, MPH, PhD, co-leaders of the I*CARE project.

broadened the base of who could provide interventions and of how interventions are delivered.”

Leyenaar and Brady initiated the project by engaging parents, adolescents, community-based mental health workers, and DHMC clinicians to discuss what could be realistically accomplished during boarding. They prioritized a number of mental health interventions, such as coping skills and relaxation techniques, that patients between the ages of 12 and 17 can explore through video content and a workbook. LNAs and other pediatric caregivers—the people already on the floor and establishing rapport with the kids—coach the patients through the content.

“We received really helpful feedback on the content from kids who told us what they liked and didn’t like, and we were able to make changes based on that feedback,” says Leyenaar. Levy Incubator staff and members of the Learning Design and Systems team within the Center for Learning and Professional Development at DHMC also were key in

helping Leyenaar and Brady create their interventions using the best methodology and human-centered design.

Changing the paradigm in approaches to care

Since launching last November, 25 children boarding in the CHaD Inpatient Pediatric Unit have worked through the program.

“They arrived depressed or anxious, some thinking about suicide, some having already attempted it,” says Leyenaar. “The medical model that focuses on physical health didn’t work for this population. We’ve changed the paradigm of how we approach their care.”

Brady adds, “Not being able to deliver the needed care was demoralizing for staff— they wanted to help but didn’t know how. Through the program, they’re developing more familiarity and comfort with mental health skills and feel better equipped to care for these patients.”

I*CARE is now being piloted in the DHMC ED as well,

1,000-5,000

youth board in the nation’s 4,000 emergency departments every night

87 of 88

pediatric hospitals in the U.S. regularly board an average of 4 children overnight

30%

decline in U.S. residential treatment facilities for youth under the age of 18 between 2012 and 2020 (from 848 facilities down to 592)

“

Mental health interventions traditionally aren’t consistently delivered during boarding because there aren’t enough clinicians to deliver them. With I*CARE, we’ve broadened the base of who could provide interventions and of how interventions are delivered.”

—Robert Brady, PhD

and Leyenaar and Brady are responding to inquiries about the program from other institutions. “Unique to I*CARE is the use of the digital health intervention, which means it can be delivered anywhere, in the same way, consistently,” Leyenaar says.

But before disseminating I*CARE, the next step for Leyenaar and Brady is to conduct a multisite clinical trial to evaluate the mental health outcomes of kids who take part in the program.

“Especially in some rural hospitals where they don’t have anyone in the mental health sphere, I*CARE could be an enormously helpful bridge,” says Brady. “We’re moving toward that with all deliberate speed.”

Setting up a clinical trial to evaluate I*CARE’s effectiveness will require additional support, and Leyenaar and Brady are looking to foundations and the National Institutes of Health for grant funding. In the meantime, they’re grateful for the philanthropy that’s brought their project this far.

“Change is hard and implementing it is nearly

impossible without philanthropic support,” Brady says. “The Incubator provided the resources for our team to step away from our other duties and concentrate on developing something that we hope will improve the overall wellbeing of kids who are boarding.”

Thrilled with the projects generated by the Health Care Delivery Incubator so far, Dick Levy is looking forward to renewing his support in the future. He says of I*CARE, “This is a low-cost intervention that has the potential to greatly improve outcomes for kids in crisis while giving them access to much-needed mental health supports. It’s just the sort of solution I hoped to see emerge when I helped establish the Health Care Delivery Incubator at Dartmouth.”

HEALING THE HURT

Trauma-Informed Treatment for Vulnerable Youth

Imagine you’re a child who’s teased relentlessly for being different. You’re bullied on the school bus, ignored in the lunchroom, and never invited to sleepovers or dances. And because you’re different, you’re also a target for the most extreme forms of victim ization—emotional manipulation, physical abuse, and rape.

Kids and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are up to 60 percent more likely to experience trauma than neurotypical youth. Often hampered by limited communication skills, these children express themselves through behavior—and when they’ve suffered a trauma, they may withdraw, regress, or hurt themselves and the people around them. Trauma-informed care is an evidence-based therapeutic practice that could be life-changing for kids with IDD, including those with autism

spectrum disorders (ASD), but most mental health practitioners who offer this type of care don’t have experience working with the neurodivergent population—and most caregivers who provide services to youth with IDD aren’t equipped to incorporate traumasensitive practices.

The Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Research Center (DTIRC), a collaboration between the Geisel School of Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), is transforming

the child mental health system in New Hampshire by training community-based behavioral health and related providers in evidence-based approaches and treatments for child trauma. Thanks to a new five-year grant from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the DTIRC team recently launched Project ATTAIN: Access to Trauma-informed Treatment and Assessment for Neurodivergent and/or genderexpansive youth.

of common

Screening, training, and disseminating

Kay Jankowski, PhD, director of DTIRC, an associate professor of psychiatry at Geisel, and director of psychology services at DHMC, says, “The goal of Project ATTAIN is to improve services for this vulnerable population by developing screening methods to better identify trauma-related problems, training community caregivers in trauma-informed treatment, and creating a curriculum to share with behavioral health workers beyond New Hampshire.”

Also a member of the Dartmouth Hitchcock Transgender Identity Clinic, Jankowski further explains that compared to cisgender individuals, transgender and gender nonconforming youth have higher rates of both IDD and trauma. “How do we best meet the needs and promote the health of these kids?” she says. “These are some of the biggest issues in the pediatric behavioral landscape today.”

Erin Barnett, PhD, who’s co-leading the project with Jankowski and is an associate professor of psychiatry and of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, says, “Asking ‘what happened to you?’ is at the core of traumainformed care. Children with IDD aren’t often asked that question, but they should be.”

Hope for caregivers and for children

Psychiatrist Jennifer McLaren, MD, who oversees Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Services (BANDS) at DHMC, is DTIRC’s clinical consultant on the trauma screening tools and provider trainings. BANDS is a regional leader in the care of patients with IDD and it will serve as the testing ground to pilot screening and assessment practices prior to rolling them out to community-based agencies.

“We have evidence-based interventions on how to treat people who’ve suffered trauma, but there are currently not enough people in the region who are well-versed in those interventions and taking patients with IDD,” says McLaren, who is also the medical director for the Bureau of Developmental Services in New Hampshire and an associate professor of psychiatry, of pediatrics, and of The Dartmouth Institute. “This project will increase the workforce available to care for this patient population.”

Kelly Smith, LICSW, a therapist based in Concord, N.H., spe cializes in working with children who’ve experienced trauma— including neurodivergent and gender-expansive youth. The director of training for New Hampshire Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), Smith has partnered with DTIRC on other grants and will be leading

the trainings in trauma-in formed care.

Smith describes a patient who’d lived in poverty, witnessed domestic abuse, and moved frequently as a child. Then she was raped. “Therapists insisted that this patient couldn’t do trauma work because she’s cognitively delayed,” Smith says. “She was living in a residential treatment center and had 300 incident reports a month, ranging from self-harm to harm to others or to property. I began doing trauma work with her and within half a year her incident reports were down to 100 a month. Now, a couple years later, she has one per quarter.”

She continues, “Trauma gets stored in the body, in the mind, and in the soul, and if you don’t address it, it’s going to come out somewhere. But you do trauma work with these kids and they need fewer hospitalizations, they can spend more time with their families and in their communities, and they gain a sense of hope—often for the first time in their lives.”

Meeting the mental health needs of atrisk kids

Other members of the Project ATTAIN team include experts from Boston Children’s Hos pital, Children’s National in Washington, D.C., Cincin nati Children’s, and Cohen

Children’s Medical Center, Northwell Health in New York. Throughout the five-year grant, faculty from The Dartmouth Institute’s Center for Program Design and Evaluation will be engaged in a continuous eval uation process to ensure the project is meeting its objec tives.

While the ultimate goal of Project ATTAIN is to create a trauma screening and training curriculum that can benefit neurodivergent and genderexpansive youth anywhere, team members are hoping the grant will lead to more support for related programs and services at DHMC. At the top of their list is the establishment of a clinic within BANDS to address the mental health needs of children who present as neuro- and gender-diverse.

“As the number of children who identify as gender nonconforming grows, there’s an increased demand on psychiatrists and psychologists to provide diagnostic evaluations,” says McLaren. “Though not all of these kids are neurodiverse, we’re interested in knowing if they have underlying autism, and caring for them in terms of their higher risk of trauma.”

Whatever comes next for DTIRC, Smith is grateful to be part of the team. “They’re doing fantastic, profound work. What a benefit to our youth and to the people caring for them.”

10,000

youth with an IDD in N.H.

Gender non-comforming individuals are more likely than cisgender individuals to have an ASD

30-60%

of children with an IDD have experienced trauma

THANK YOU TO OUR Donors

Our purpose at Dartmouth Health Children’s is to help all kids lead their healthiest, happiest lives. At CHaD, New Hampshire’s only children’s hospital, we deliver the best care, in the right place, every time—regardless of a family’s ability to pay. Our discovery, education, and advocacy missions, in partnership with the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, extend well beyond state lines.

The generosity of our community makes this possible.

Every dollar donated and every hour volunteered represents an investment in strengthening the care of our children and the experience of our families. It is this shared commitment, not only to our patients but also to our communities, that makes Dartmouth Health Children’s so special.

The following stories highlight a few examples of your generosity. Each gift, no matter the size, helps us deliver expert, compassionate care and advance the latest discoveries in child health research. Thank you, to all our donors, for being part of the Dartmouth Health Children’s community.

$1 MILLION GIFT ENDOWS AUTISM PROGRAM

Mental health care is so poorly reimbursed by insurance companies, it is only through grants and phil anthropic funding that Dartmouth Health can provide specialized healthcare clinics and community support for people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and developmental disabilities—includ ing children. Jeff and Terry Marshall, trustees of the Thomas Marshall Foundation, recognized this need and recently committed $1 million to establish the Mosenthal Pediatric Autism Endowment. The endow ment will fund research activities, clinical care, administrative activi ties, patient and family support, and education for medical professionals and the community.

One area supported by the endow ment is Behavioral and Neurodevel opmental Services (BANDS). BANDS is a multidisciplinary team of pro viders at the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (CHaD) who work with children and their families dealing with ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Expert physicians, psychologists, education consultants, and resource specialists provide comprehensive evaluations and consultations to answer complex diagnostic ques tions, and work collaboratively with parents and schools to help children with ASD and neurodiversity thrive.

Demand for services for children with ASD and developmental disabilities is growing rapidly. The Marshall Foundation gift is making a differ ence in the lives of children and their families today, and it will continue to make a difference into the future.

CARE FOR THE CHILDREN OF ADULT PATIENTS

When adults are hospitalized, there are often children in their lives who are also affected. Dartmouth Health Children’s child life specialists regu larly helped children of patients nav igate their concerns, but demand for this guidance more than quadrupled over a five-year period and it became clear that Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center needed a full-time child life specialist dedicated to chil dren of adult patients. Thanks to the vision of longtime Dartmouth Health supporters Bruce and Meg Seely and generous contributions from Judy Smith, this vital resource is now embedded in DHMC, providing services that have a lasting impact on children and their families.

IMPROVING AND SUSTAINING CHILDREN’S HEALTH

Philanthropy has long been important to Keith and Linda Forrest, who believe that every child deserves a chance to lead a healthy, productive, and full life. When the Forrests moved to New Hampshire in 2021, they quickly shared their generosity with CHaD by establishing an endowed fund through charitable gift annuities. The Keith and Linda Forrest Fund supports inpatient care at CHaD, as well as beautification and maintenance of outdoor spaces like the CHaD playground—a welcome resource for Dartmouth Health Children’s youngest patients and visitors.

FUELING THE CARE FOR 20 YEARS

Patients receiving care at CHaD come from all over New Hampshire and Vermont. For many families, it’s a challenge to pay for the additional travel costs associated with receiving medical care for their child—and can mean the difference between can celing and keeping an appointment. That’s why Irving Oil’s Fuel the Care program has been such a vital resource for so many families. For 20 years, Irving Oil has partnered with CHaD and works closely with Molly’s Place at the CHaD Family Center to help provide Irving Oil fuel gift cards to families in need.

“Our customers’ support allows us to help thousands of families every year through Fuel the Care,” says Irving Oil Executive Vice President and Chief Branding Officer Sarah Irving. “We are very thankful for their support in helping to make a difference for fami lies in our local communities.”

Removing barriers and helping to provide access to exceptional medical care is a priority that both Dartmouth Health Children’s and Irving Oil stand behind. To learn more about this program, visit irvingoil.com or fuelthecare.com.

by Lauren Seidman

In a conference room stocked with supplies for families—loaded diaper bags, non-perishable food items, gun locks, lifejackets—Steven H. Chapman, MD, nods at William Boyle, MD, and says, “Bill is our mentor. He’s our North Star.”

It’s been 25 years since Boyle, a now-retired pediatrician, and Jane Stetson, a concerned parent, cofounded the Boyle Community Pediatrics Program at the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (CHaD). They recognized that sick kids and their families received a great deal of support while in the hospital, and very little outside of it. For a quarter century, the Boyle Program has been addressing this gap by partnering with families and communities, training medical students and resi dents in patient-centered care, and advocating for children.

“This program was the answer people were looking for,” Boyle says. “The doors of a hospital must swing out, not just in.”

For the last 10 years, Chapman, the Boyle Chair for Community Advo

cacy, a Dartmouth Health Children’s pediatrician, and an associate professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine, has served as medical director of the Boyle Pro gram. He says, “Bill and Jane’s vision is as relevant as ever. Engaging with families where they live and listening to their goals and needs helps kids and their families lead their happiest, healthiest lives.”

Funded entirely through philan thropy, the Boyle Program carries out its mission through a variety of educational, clinical, and advocacy initiatives. Pediatric residents eat dinner with families at the Upper Val ley Haven, a local resource to people experiencing food or housing inse curity, and provide medical backup at the shelter. They participate in Recovery Friendly Clinics for fami lies affected by the opioid epidemic. They visit the homes of families with children who have a serious illness.

As they learn more about the needs of families, they take action: One resident has testified before New Hampshire legislators in support of paid family medical leave; another led a public forum on racism and the wellbeing of Black youth in the Upper Valley; and they all help deter mine what supplies should line the shelves of the conference room in which Boyle and Chapman sit.

“Bill and Jane saw what we as pediatricians could and should be, and 25 years later we’re still realizing their vision and sharing it with the next generation of physicians,” says Chapman.

“And it’s all made possible thanks to philanthropy,” Boyle says. “With additional support, we can continue to build and grow the bridges that connect CHaD and the communities we serve.”

Reid’s first contact with the amazing providers at Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center began when he was nine months old. As of age nine, Reid has had five surgeries, undergone so many phlebotomy appointments he is no longer bothered by the process, and has learned to navigate CHaD with ease. Throughout all of this, he has continued to amaze his family and friends with his resiliency and outgoing and infectious happiness. An amazing kid who constantly seeks to help others, no matter how he is feeling, Reid has decided that he wants to be a pediatric surgeon when he grows up—in large part due to the care and attention he has received as a patient of Dartmouth Health Children’s.”

—Jason and Heather, Reid’s parents

“

Medical & Healthcare Advancement

NH 03756-0001

PLANNED

From left to right: Z, Jean Jr., Avi, and Jean Sr. enjoy the patio at Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center after spending time with the newest member of their family in the intensive care nursery (ICN).

At Dartmouth Health Children’s, we are working to help children and their families live their happiest, healthiest lives. By including a gift to the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in your will or trust, or by naming CHaD as a beneficiary of your retirement plan or other account, you will help lay the groundwork for compassionate patient care and innovative research for future generations. When you make a planned gift to CHaD, you can leave whatever amount you wish to the hospital, while continuing to take care of your loved ones. It’s a straightforward and flexible option that allows you to have a lasting impact on Dartmouth Health Children’s.

We’re here to help answer questions, refer you to estate planning resources, or draft sample language for you to share with your family and advisors. Contact our Office of Planned Giving at 603-646-5858 or DH.Geisel.Planned.Giving@Dartmouth.edu

“

I wanted to make very sure that I could keep supporting Dartmouth Health Children’s for years and years to come. And that’s why I made a planned gift.”

– Carla Manley-Russock