Cincinnati’s Other Pediatric Hospital
Cincinnati Children’s has emerged as the exclusive provider of pediatric inpatient care in the city, but this was not always the case. For most of the past century, many private area hospitals cared for children, and the most notable of these was Good Samaritan Hospital. For over a century, Good Sam (as everyone calls it) not only provided pediatric inpatient and outpatient services, but was the site of some important developments in the emerging field of neonatology. For several decades, it even had its own pediatric residency program.
Good Samaritan Hospital was founded in pre-Civil War times by the Sisters of Charity; philanthropic support from the Joseph Butler family allowed it to relocate to its current site on Clifton Avenue in 1915, where it gradually expanded, arm by arm, over the next 100 years. Good Sam welcomed patients regardless of race, creed or ability to pay; however, during the first half of the 20th century, patients, as well as providers, tended to align themselves with hospitals whose affiliations matched their own. Good Sam was perceived as the Catholic hospital, and located, as it was, just left of Vine Street, it drew many of its patients, physicians and staff from the west side of town.
West-side community pediatricians were actively involved in training the residents. Their expertise was supplemented by pediatric medical and surgical sub-specialists, some based at Good Sam, others at Cincinnati Children’s, providing the house staff with a well-rounded pediatric education.
From the beginning, Good Sam has been the local leader in newborn deliveries – over 5,000 per year in the 1970s, for example, compared with 3,000 at The General Hospital (now UC Health). These large numbers made it an ideal location for training, innovation and clinical trials.
Good Sam’s nursery was the site of the city’s first double-volume exchange transfusion. For many decades, approximately 13 percent of all newborns were afflicted with erythroblastosis fetalis, caused by Rh isoimmunization. Good Sam administrator, Sr. Eugene Marie Carpe, traveled to Boston Children’s Hospital to learn the new technique and in 1946, she assisted Charles Pfahler, MD, a west-side community pediatrician, in performing the first double-volume exchange transfusion in Cincinnati. The procedure quickly caught on; during one week, 32 life-saving exchange transfusions were performed!
In 1956, Dr. Ernie Rolfes, another west-side community pediatrician who’d done his residency at Good Sam, persuaded the hospital to open its first “preemie” nursery to improve the care of these fragile infants. At that time, the care of premature infants everywhere was almost entirely supportive. There was no treatment for respiratory distress, nor were there effective methods for monitoring temperature, blood gases and other critical functions. Mortality was high.
However, dramatic changes were coming. In August 1963, a 34-week preemie died at two days of age from what was then called “hyaline membrane disease.” His death might have remained an isolated, personal tragedy, except that his father was President of the United States. Patrick Kennedy’s death was an impetus to the development of the field of neonatology throughout the country.
In Cincinnati, Jim Sutherland, MD, and his colleagues began exploring a variety of treatment and monitoring innovations at both Cincinnati Children’s and General Hospital. At Good Sam, Dr. Don Frank, who had once been in private practice with Bill Schubert, began transforming the preemie unit into the city’s first Newborn Intensive Care Unit, which opened in 1965 with 27 beds. The first ventilator was used there in 1971, and CPAP was introduced in 1972, the equipment being initially jerry-rigged out of spare parts by the clinical staff.
In 1960, Dr. Donald Fischer was hired to restructure and improve all of Good Sam’s residency training programs. Don Frank, assisted by Drs. Rosemary Schmidt and Omer Berger, worked with him, expanding Good Sam’s pediatric residency program to include rotations at General Hospital and Cincinnati Children’s.
Chuck Deitschel, MD, was recruited to the Good Sam residency program by Don Frank during these exciting times. He chose this program over Cincinnati Children’s in part because it paid twice as much! At Good Sam, he oversaw the treatment of children on an 80-bed pediatric inpatient ward, in a busy outpatient clinic, as well as in the newborn nurseries and intensive care unit. Residents were on-call 36 hours and off 12, Deitschel recalls. Teaching at Good Sam was done by community pediatricians. Specialists came over from Cincinnati Children’s, usually after 5 pm, when their duties there were completed, giving the residents a good flavor of what community practice was like.
Deitschel spent half his residency at Cincinnati Children’s and served as the first pediatric chief resident at Good Sam in 1967-68. The relationship between residents and staff at both Good Sam and Children’s was very collegial, Deitschel recalls. The focus was on sharing best practices without any sense of competition or rivalry.
In 1970, the neonatology staff at Good Sam got a unique opportunity to put their newfound expertise to use, when two baby gorillas were born at the Cincinnati Zoo, among the first lowland gorillas ever born in captivity. Because their mothers lacked appropriate nurturing skills, the zoo turned to Good Sam for help. A special nursery was created in Good Sam’s animal lab. NICU nurses, working under the direction of Dr. Rosemary Schmidt, cared for them, often attaching wigs to their chests while cuddling the gorillas to better prepare them for their return to their mothers. The babies were named Sam and Samantha in honor of the hospital. This was the beginning of a fruitful and ongoing collaboration between the Cincinnati Zoo and the neonatology staff at both Good Sam and Cincinnati Children’s.
After the passage of the Indigent Care Tax Levy in 1976, most area private hospitals voluntarily closed their pediatric wards, except for their nurseries. Because of its size, this was more problematic for Good Sam. However, in 1977, Dr. Schubert received a phone call from Sr. Grace Marie, Good Sam’s CEO, inviting him to discuss transition plans. She proposed transferring their pediatric patients to Cincinnati Children’s and asked the hospital to complete the training of their current residents. Over a steak lunch, Schubert, Cincinnati Children’s President and CEO Lonnie Wright, and Sr. Grace Marie, sealed the deal with a handshake. “Those were the good old days!” Schubert is quoted as saying.
The transition went smoothly; Cincinnati Children’s residents began rotating through Good Sam’s clinics, nurseries and NICU, and Children’s neonatology staff and fellows began to assist Good Sam’s neonatology staff in managing and further expanding the NICU.
Good Samaritan Hospital, now a part of TriHealth, remains a major player in the delivery and care of newborns, delivering over 6,000 babies per year. It is also the site of the city’s first accredited Level III NICU. The state-of-the-art unit now has 56 beds. A new collaborative agreement with Cincinnati Children’s provides staffing by neonatologists from both hospitals. Good Sam has participated in many clinical trials, including early testing of surfactant. A home healthcare program and high-risk follow-up program, among others, help to serve the acute and long-term needs of many of the hospital’s “graduates.” And many former Good Sam pediatric residents, both in private practice and specialty services, retain a great fondness for the hospital on the hill, with its welcoming arms, that first taught them how to be pediatricians.
-- M. Elaine Billmire, MD – March 2018
