Leadership Message

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the website of the Department of Pediatrics, UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center (CMC).  The CMC is the only tertiary care health care facility for infants, children, and adolescents in Central New England.

Since 2005 we have been members of the Children's Hospital Association, formerly NACHRI (National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions) as a "hospital within a hospital." Within Central New England, we have the only Level One accredited Trauma Center for Children, the only Level Three Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for the region, and the only Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). We have more than 110 medical and surgical specialists and subspecialists skilled and trained in the care of children and more than 500 support staff in the disciplines of nursing, social work, psychology, nutrition, and child life, to name a few.  Over the past year, the Children's Medical Center admitted over 4,000 children to the inpatient and critical care units, cared for more than 30,000 children in the Pediatric Emergency Department, and recorded more than 55,000 patient visits in the Ambulatory Service.

All physicians in the CMC are faculty members at UMass Chan Medical School, where they teach medical students, interns and residents, and other ancillary students.  They also conduct research on many topics related to child health such as HIV, leukemia, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, and health care delivery in the community.  UMass Chan Medical School was one of 40 centers for the National Children's Study (NCS), a federally funded longitudinal study to investigate the effects of the environment on the growth and development and health of children by following 100,000 children from pre-birth to age 21 years.  

The CMC considers every child in Central New England to be “our” children and we feel responsible for each child’s health care, either directly or indirectly.  We work closely with all primary care physicians in the area who care for children.  We know medical care for children has changed dramatically in recent years.  Many children with complex conditions such as cancer, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, and other chronic illnesses can now be cared for as outpatients rather than having to be admitted to the hospital.  We utilize multi-disciplinary teams for many of these diagnoses and we make a special effort to insure we provide family-centered care for all of our patients.

We hope you will use this website to learn more about our services, faculty and staff.  We consider it a privilege to care for your children as if they were our own.

Lawrence Rhein, MD