Children's Hospitals Today - Spring 2018 - 17

The Waller family, from left: Joseph, Brooke, Teddy, Henry, Doug and Rose

When they got custody of Joseph, they learned he had
sickle cell anemia. Test results showed he was in danger of a
medical crisis or even death. The Wallers were with Joseph in
Uganda, trying to figure out what this meant. Their first call
was to Mary Allen Staat, M.D., M.P.H., director of the IAC at
Cincinnati Children's, to ask what this meant for their family.
"We had this moment in our hotel room where we felt
incredibly helpless with this child sitting in front of us in
Uganda and we could see he was not well," says Waller. "We
were totally ill-equipped to do anything in that moment, but
Dr. Staat made us feel like we could get through it. It felt very
dark, and she was offering light at the end of the tunnel."
Staat comes by it honestly-she had walked in Waller's
shoes. Staat adopted her three kids: George from El Salvador,
now 27; Emily from Colombia, now 24; and Katie from Ecuador,
now 22. Emily had been very sick with a heart defect as a baby,
and when Staat and her husband were in Colombia with her,
they were concerned.
Being a doctor, Staat was able to call a colleague back in the
U.S. for advice. Here was this little girl who was "starved and
scared to death and sick," says Staat, professor, UC department of pediatrics and member of the Division of Infectious
Diseases at Cincinnati Children's. "And we questioned if this

was the right decision for our family. I remember feeling
blessed I had someone I could call. If I didn't have that, I don't
know what the story might have been. So I became very passionate about making sure other families had that too."

Understanding complex health issues
The IAC opened in November 1999 with what Staat calls
minimal care. Over the years, the center offered a more
comprehensive program, including mental health services.
The team includes three therapists, a psychologist and
a psychiatrist to help families throughout their lifetime
with the developmental, cognitive, social and mental
health issues for which these children are at risk. The IAC
has helped thousands of children who have primarily emigrated from China, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Haiti and
India-all who bring with them unique and often complex
health, medical, developmental and psychological issues,
according to Staat.
In one example, Staat says some babies with heart defects come from countries where they haven't been able to
have the heart surgeries they needed. These children with
uncorrected heart conditions are more complex to manage
when they get older. "Most of these unrepaired cardiac

CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL S TODAY Spring 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Children's Hospitals Today - Spring 2018