Since our inception, the Department of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has been making major contributions to the field of pediatric medicine through our innovative research and clinical care.
Scientific Highlights
1878
Department of Pediatrics established.
1887
Bernard Sachs publishes first description in the United States of Familial Amaurotic Idiocy, later known as Tay-Sachs Disease.
1896
Henry Koplik publishes first description of spots on the mucous membrane lining the cheeks and lips, a diagnostic sign in measles now known as Koplik's Spots.
1911
Edwin Beer develops first cystoscope for children, the "Beer Cystoscope," and continues pioneering work in pediatric urology.
1912
Frederick S. Mandlebaum, MD, publishes a pioneering work on splenomegaly (Gaucher's Type). In 1913 article with Nathan Brill, suggests adopting the term 'Gaucher's disease' to describe condition.
1924
First Pediatrics residents graduate.
1931
Samuel Karelitz, MD, and Bela Schick first to advocate continuous intravenous fluid administration to combat infant dehydration as opposed to intermittent infusion, resulting in reduced mortality rates by 75 percent.
1949
Horace Hodes, MD, becomes first full-time Director of Pediatrics for The Mount Sinai Hospital. Two decades later he is named the Herbert H. Lehman Professor and Chairman of Pediatrics.
1968
Kurt Hirschhorn, MD, becomes the first Arthur J. and Nellie Z. Cohen Professor of Genetics and Pediatrics and a year later heads the Department of Pediatrics’ Clinical Genetics Research Center--one of seven NIH-funded centers in the country.
1968
The Adolescent Health Center is established as the first primary care program in New York specifically designed for the health needs of adolescents.
1972
The Adolescent Health Center creates the first pediatric fellowship in adolescent care.
1982
The Jack and Lucy Clark Department of Pediatrics is established.
1986
The Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics create a five-year Triple Board residency training program for work in Pediatrics, General Psychiatry, and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
1987
The Mount Sinai Children's Center Foundation is established.
1996
Frederick J. Suchy, MD, internationally renowned pediatric hepatologist, is appointed Department Chair of Pediatrics. His research focuses on transport systems in the developing liver and mechanisms of cholestatic liver disease.
1997
The Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Food Allergy Institute is established. The Institute is a pioneer in comprehensive diagnostics and is directed by Hugh A. Sampson, a world leader in food allergy research who determined that baked forms of milk or egg help build tolerance.
2001
Bruce Gelb, MD, and colleagues identify the first gene causing Noonan syndrome when mutated. Noonan syndrome is the most common non-chromosomal genetic disorder with congenital heart defects.
2003
Physicians at Mount Sinai Hospital develop and carry out the first ever successful treatment for atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome using combined liver-kidney transplantation.
2005
Mount Sinai becomes the first in New York State to use the Berlin Heart pump to keep a pediatric patient alive for two weeks before heart transplantation. Pump remains experimental in the United States.
2007
The Mount Sinai School of Medicine is selected by the NIH as one of 22 new research centers for the National Children's Study. Phil Landrigan, MD, is the Principal Investigator of the NY-NJ National Children's Study Center.
2009
Mount Sinai performs its 200th kidney transplant on a child.
2010
Lisa M. Satlin, MD, physician-scientist and developmental renal physiologist, is appointed the first female Department Chair of Pediatrics.
2011
The Kurt Hirschhorn Society for Pediatric Research launched in honor of Kurt Hirschhorn, MD, Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Pediatrics.