This Dallas hospital has been a godsend for Fort Worth kids, too. I was one of them.
A Dallas institution is marking 100 years of helping children overcome devastating orthopedic problems.
Fort Worth should celebrate, too. Scottish Rite for Children has aided thousands of Tarrant County kids. I know, because I was one of them.
To build for the next century, the hospital is embarking on its first capital campaign in conjunction with Sunday’s anniversary. It aims to raise $100 million for upgrades to its Oak Lawn facility, new equipment, and expansion of its Frisco clinic that focuses on sports medicine and fracture care, said president and chief executive officer Robert L. “Bob” Walker.
It’s a long way from the eight-bed clinic that was chartered Oct. 10, 1921, with support from Texas Masons who wanted a facility to treat childhood paralysis from polio.
In the decades since, Scottish Rite has specialized in an array of childhood orthopedic conditions. Its innovations in treating scoliosis, hand and foot maladies, and limb-length discrepancies have revolutionized such care.
“We’re world leaders in this area through our research and teaching programs,” Walker said. “Our innovations through research can literally help children all over the world.”
Of the 330,000 children treated at Scottish Rite, most were Dallas-Fort Worth area residents, he said. Many come from other parts of Texas, too, and in recent years, the hospital has seen more international patients, Walker added.
Other than developing a world-class program for children with dyslexia, the hospital has stayed true to its mission of helping children overcome orthopedic challenges. Walker said that won’t change through the capital campaign.
“We don’t want to take our eye off the ball,” he said.
And that mission gives Scottish Rite a focus on improving lives that permeates its brightly colored hallways. Cheerful volunteers and staffers abound. If you’re tempted to think primarily of lives with limitations, there’s inspiration everywhere. Consider the hospital’s annual ski trip to Colorado for amputees.
In 1989, I badly needed a dose of that hope.
Over the span of a few days, I went from a perfectly healthy aspiring football player to an emergency room patient with a temperature approaching 105. After months of specialist visits and inconclusive tests, I was sent to Dr. Chester Fink, a world-renowned pediatric arthritis specialist.
Fink handled some of the toughest cases. Once, I noticed from the birthdates listed on the sign-in sheet that I was his oldest patient on a particular day.
I was 12.
At what was then called Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Crippled Children, Fink and his colleagues found treatments that finally tamed the arthritis. Physical therapy unlocked my joints. Within a few weeks, I went from being too weak to squeeze toothpaste out of the tube to shooting baskets on the driveway again.
A few years later, in agony as my hip joint grinded bone into bone, I had a full replacement surgery at Scottish Rite. I spent 11 days there, including my 17th birthday. The staff, of course, threw a party.
None of it cost my family a dime. The realities of healthcare costs have caught up with Scottish Rite, and today, it accepts health insurance and other patient payments. But no child in need is turned away, hospital officials emphasize.
Patient care typically ends at age 18, but Scottish Rite wasn’t done with me even then. Its affiliated college scholarship helped me pay for all four years of my education and even pitched in so I could go to Washington for an internship.
On my visits to Scottish Rite, I saw so many children who had it so much worse. But the spirit of the place is pure optimism that, while a life with orthopedic problems may be different, it need not be diminished.
Let’s make sure Scottish Rite can provide that for the next 100 years, too. Visit ScottishRite100.org.
This story was originally published October 11, 2021 at 5:05 AM.
