Nineteen Children’s Hospital Colorado Doctors Featured in Medical Miracles Book

Book details life-changing experiences of healthcare providers

Nineteen current and former faculty of Children’s Hospital Colorado and the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics write about their life-changing experiences as healthcare providers in a new book, “Miracles We Have Seen: America’s Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can’t Forget.”

Professor and Vice Chair Emeritus Harley A. Rotbart, M.D., a nationally-renowned parenting expert, pediatrician, speaker, and educator practicing at Children’s Colorado, edited the book, which was released last month. Each of the 75 essayists was invited to designate a favorite charity, and Dr. Rotbart is donating 100% of net author proceeds to those charities, including Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation, listed at the back of the book.

“Miracles We Have Seen” is a collection of 85 essays written by renowned specialists in virtually every field of medicine. The essays recount, in moving everyday language, clinical events which stunned the physicians and everyone else involved – impossible cures, breathtaking resuscitations, extraordinary awakenings, spectacular serendipities, and recovery from unimaginable disasters. Still other physicians wrote of experiences in which the miracle was more emotional than physical, yet also left a lasting imprint. And others share the discovery of a silver lining of forgiveness or resilience, a child’s wisdom or a family’s generosity of spirit, which evoked salvation and triumph in the face of sadness and tragedy.

Essays from Children’s Colorado doctors featured in the book include some of the following compelling stories:

• Dr. Rotbart chronicles his own experience in a piece titled, “The First and Still the Most Miraculous,” about his care of the first pediatric AIDS patient in Colorado, Jonathan, who was born in 1983 and diagnosed in 1985, a time when many patients were dying and no pediatric treatments for AIDS existed. Miraculously, Jonathan is still alive today. The 32-year-old lives in Utah and has a child of his own.
• In “A Source of Light and Love,” Dr. Daniel Hyman, chief quality and patient safety officer at Children’s Colorado, shares the inspiring story of Melody, a little girl born with Trisomy 18, who has defied all odds in living to be more than three years old, when most children diagnosed with this genetic disorder don’t live past their first birthdays. Melody and her family have reinforced Dr. Hyman’s focus on care that meets every individual’s unique needs. “We must always seek to provide patient- and family-centered care,” he writes, “and to do so we must consider every situation in the context of the circumstances and needs of each patient and family, rather than react reflexively based on a diagnostic label,” writes Dr. Hyman. Melody lives in Colorado and updates to her story can be found here.
• Dr. Michael Kappy, a pediatric endocrinologist at Children’s Colorado, tells his own story in “A Dramatic Cure Leads to Many More” of living through Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) in 1956, thanks to the help of an iron lung. Dr. Kappy’s experience inspired him to go into the medical field, and, as a result, he has helped thousands of others throughout his career, showing the importance and potential represented by each patient’s life.

Since its release, “Miracles We Have Seen” has reached the bestseller lists on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

See media coverage of the book and our doctors

• CBS4: "Colorado's First AIDS Baby is Doctor's Miracle"
• Colorado Public Radio: "Colorado Pediatrician Asks Doctors To Contemplate Miracles They Have Seen"