Bob Kerrey: “I am pleased to submit this proposal to provide critical support to teaching programs at free-standing children's…”

“I am pleased to submit this proposal to provide critical support to teaching programs at free-standing children's hospitals. I am also honored to be joined by Senators Bond, Durbin, Kennedy, DeWine and Moynihan on this bill. Children's hospitals play an important role in our nation's health care system. They combine high-quality clinical care, a vibrant teaching mission and leading pediatric biomedical research within their walls. They provide specialized regional services, including complex care to chronically ill children, and serve as safety-net providers to low-income children. Teaching is an everyday component of these hospitals' operations. Pediatric hospitals train one-quarter of the nation's pediatricians, and the majority of America's pediatric specialists. Pediatric residents develop the skills they need to care for our nation's children at these institutions. In addition, pediatric hospitals combine the joint missions of teaching and research. Scientific discovery depends on the strong academic focus of teaching hospitals. The teaching environment attracts academics devoted to research. It attracts the volume and spectrum of complex cases needed for clinical research. And the teaching mission creates the intellectual environment necessary to test the conventional wisdom of day-to-day health care and foster the questioning that leads to breakthroughs in research.”