Children's Hospital Boston Featured in ABC News Medical Series 'Boston Med'

One of three top hospitals featured in the prime time series beginning Thursday, June 24th at 10 p.m.

BOSTON, June 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Children's Hospital Boston will make its national prime-time debut on Thursday, June 24, at 10 p.m. when ABC begins airing it's new eight-part medical documentary, "Boston Med." Building on the success of  "Hopkins" – a similar documentary shot completely at Johns Hopkins Medicine in 2007 – ABC News came to Boston to capture all the compelling medical stories that Children's, Mass General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital had to offer.

For four months in 2009, ABC News film crews had unparalleled access to all three institutions, following doctors, nurses, patients and their families through a myriad of tests, diagnoses and procedures in order to tell the story of the Boston medical community and the patients we encounter every day.

"We welcomed ABC into our institution in order to share our remarkable, every-day experiences with the nation," said James Mandell, MD, CEO of Children's. "'Boston Med' afforded us the opportunity to not only give the nation a look at the way we provide care, but also to showcase the tremendously specialized and demanding field of pediatrics."  

"Boston Med" will highlight a number of Children's patients. We'll meet a 16-year-old girl who receives a heart transplant; a toddler who is rushed into the Emergency Department with a neurological crisis and is also diagnosed with kidney disease, saddling her with dialysis for the rest of her life; and a pregnant woman whose husband comes home on leave from Iraq to discuss treatment options for the Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) their unborn daughter has been diagnosed with.

Viewers will also get to know a number of Children's staff, including pediatric cardiac surgeons Francis Fynn-Thompson and Emile Bacha; cardiac specialists Rahul Rathod and Elizabeth Blume; Pediatrician-in-Chief Gary Fleisher, ED pediatric doctor Josh Nagler; and chief of the division of Nephrology, Bill Harmon.

Episodes with a special focus on Children's will air on July 1, July 15 and August 5.

Founded in 1869 as a 20-bed hospital for children, Children's Hospital Boston today is one of the nation's leading pediatric medical centers, the primary pediatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, and the largest provider of health care to Massachusetts children. In addition to 396 pediatric and adolescent inpatient beds and more than 100 outpatient programs, Children's houses the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries benefit both children and adults. More than 1,100 scientists, including nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 12 members of the Institute of Medicine and 13 members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Children's research community. For more information about the hospital visit: www.childrenshospital.org/newsroom.

SOURCE Children's Hospital Boston