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Three Innovations Shorten Heart Transplant Patient’s Wait Time

It started as a simple persistent wet cough, something Eloise (Ellie) McCloskey’s mom, Aubrey, noticed before spring break of second grade, and it quickly escalated from there. After a week in the hospital and an echocardiogram and tests, the family received the news. Ellie had dilated cardiomyopathy—a disease of the heart muscle—and her heart was slowly failing.

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Rebounding from extraordinary challenges

When Ben Thornton wheeled onto the court for the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program’s youth wheelchair basketball West Coast Conference Championship at Stanford, it was a game he was certain to play with heart — the same heart, in fact, that he received at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford nearly 12 years ago.

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Packard Children’s patient visits Capitol Hill to advocate for kids with complex medical conditions

On the heels of his preschool graduation, 4-year-old Tyler Briend kicked off his summer vacation by traveling to Washington D.C. to speak with lawmakers about improving health care access for kids like him – patients living with complex medical conditions. Tyler, a patient at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, and his parents made the trip as part of Speak Now for Kids Family Advocacy Day, sponsored by the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA).

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Shaping a Brighter Future

In medicine we often refer to the “natural history of disease”— the normal course that a disease takes in an individual if no treatment occurs. In the case of congenital heart disease, the “natural history” was often death or, at best, survival with significant limitations. Fortunately, that history has changed.

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Phoenix baby saved by heart surgery pioneer

Baby Jackson Lane’s heart problems were “about as dramatic as you can get.” Famed surgeon Dr. Frank Hanley and his team stepped in to save Jackson’s life. “We are just so lucky that we found Dr. Hanley and that our son fought for his life,” said mom Elyse.

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Dateline NBC Profiles Family’s Heart Journey

This Wednesday, June 5, at 8 pm, Dateline NBC will present the fascinating story of the Bingham family’s medical journey at Packard Children’s. It should be one of Dateline’s most talked-about programs of the year.

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From the Heart

Karina Gomez’s daughter, Kassaundra, was born in 2002 with a rare and life-threatening cardiac abnormality. At just 2 days old, Packard heart surgeons attached a tiny pacemaker to one of the two lower chambers, or ventricles, of her heart. Five months later, it was replaced it with a more advanced device wired to both ventricles.