10. The Children’s Hospital in Denver
Current Research Studies: 643
Cutting-Edge Treatments: Is boosting the survival rates for high-grade glioma, a rapidly growing cancerous brain tumor, by infusing chemotherapy during radiation; led a study among several children’s hospitals that found that inhaled-nitric-oxide therapy can halve the risk of chronic lung disease in premature babies with    respiratory failure who weigh between 21/4 and 23/4 pounds; and received commendations from the National Cancer Institute for increasing young children’s access to experimental studies.

Compassionate Care: Provides yoga therapy for cancer patients; teen karaoke nights; a patient art gallery; an outdoor playground with a padded floor; and camps for siblings of patients.

Community Focus: Offers a nationally renowned weight-management program for kids; lends specially designed car seats to families whose kids have a cast; and sponsors clinics to distribute free flu vaccines.

Lauren Lewakowski, 16, and her dad biked 54 miles through the mountains of Colorado during a charity race in July 2005. Lewakowski didn’t care how long it took her to finish — the fact that she was cycling at all was a huge victory. She was born with a condition in which the ball of her hip was impinging on her socket, and from age 8 until about a year before the race, she was in  pain. “It had gotten so bad that she couldn’t climb the stairs to her bedroom without crying,” says her mom, Cathy Lee, who underwent hip replacement at age 36 for the same condition.

Hoping to spare her daughter from a fate like her own, she scheduled an appointment for Lauren with Ernest Sink, M.D., at The Children’s Hospital, Denver. He’s one of a handful of doctors in the nation with experience performing periacetabular osteotomy, a complex surgery that rotates the hip socket so it better covers the ball joint. Just two months after the operation on her right hip, she hiked up a 14,000-foot mountain; three months after that she went snowboarding. The operation improved her life so much that she’s scheduled surgery for her left hip. Says her mom: “Imagine what she’ll be doing then.”

Excerpted from Child magazine. To read the complete article, including the top specialty hospitals for children, click here.

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