Department of Pediatrics celebrates seven decades of education, care and research

Cutting the ribbon on the Kathy and Joe Sanderson Tower at Children's of Mississippi are, from left, the Sanderson's daughters Julie Richard, Emily Whitaker and Katy Creath; patient Miracle Brown and her grandmother Aretha Edwards; state Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Champion Sybil Cumberland and her mother Tara Cumberland; Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine; former Gov. Phil Bryant; and Melanie Morgan, board chair of Friends of Children's Hospital. Celebrating with them are leaders in medicine and government.

Department of Pediatrics celebrates seven decades of education, care and research

Published on Monday, September 22, 2025

By: Annie Oeth, [email protected]

The care of Mississippi's children has grown along with the University of Mississippi Medical Center's Department of Pediatrics, which turned 70 this year.

Taylor

"The difference the Department of Pediatrics has made in the lives of children and families in Mississippi is enormous," said Dr. Mary Taylor, Suzan B. Thames Chairand professor of pediatrics. "We are training the next generation of pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists, providing world-class care at the state's only children's hospital and are making discoveries through research that will improve the standard of care for children in the future."

Taylor, the fourth Department of Pediatrics chair in UMMC's history, is the first woman and first UMMC graduate to lead the department. She stepped into the role Dec. 1, 2017, the day ground was broken on what is now the Kathy and Joe Sanderson Tower at Children's of Mississippi.

The Department of Pediatrics today is one of the largest at UMMC, encompassing more than 300 pediatric providers and representing more than 39 specialties.

Healthy from the start

The department's dramatic growth started with the late Dr. Blair Batson, a Vanderbilt graduate who started the department in 1955 when the Medical Center opened. At the time, the most common childhood illnesses treated included tuberculosis, scurvy, diphtheria, tetanus, typhoid fever, measles, pneumonia, polio and roundworm.

In 1974, pediatric patients received care in UMMC's first children's hospital, built in 1968.

Batson came to UMMC at 33 from Johns Hopkins, where he had been a faculty member in the School of Public Health and School of Medicine. He went on to chair the department for 34 years, officially retiring in 1989 but continuing to teach at UMMC for years after.

"I fell in love with pediatrics as a medical student here," Taylor said. "Dr. Batson had recently retired from his position as chair, and Dr. (Owen B.) Evans was a new pediatric leader. Dr. Batson held regular sessions with students who expressed an interest in pediatrics, and he was always challenging us with complex cases. He inspired students to think critically and to follow our hearts when it came to choosing our career path."

Batson influenced generations of pediatricians and the health care for generations of children. During his tenure as chairman, he taught more than 3,500 medical students and 240 pediatric residents, according to A History of Mississippi Pediatricsby Evans, professor emeritus, who followed Batson as leader of the department.

By the 1960s, pediatric care at UMMC had outgrown the children's area of University Hospital, 7 West. There were 28 beds for pediatric medicine and 12 for pediatric surgery.

Batson

"It was never enough," Batson said in the UMMC history Promises Kept by Janis Quinn. "We frequentlyfound ourselves having to turn down patients who needed to be here just because there wasn'troom. Almost fromthe very beginning, it was obvious that we needed a hospital just for children."

In 1968, the campus' circular tower opened as a 100-bed children's hospital. The nurses' stations were in the center on each floor of the round structure with patient rooms surrounding.

By then, "pediatrics was a changed specialty," according to Promises Kept. "The new hospital allowed Batson to recruit pediatric specialists so that the children's hospital was now prepared to treat the whole range of childhood illnesses and conditions and become a pediatric referral center for the entire state. Beginning then, it became the only hospital in the state where children could be treated for cancer, hemophilia, congenital heart defects, developmental disorders, cystic fibrosis, seizures and epilepsy."

Growth in care

Beginning with the opening of the first children's hospital, pediatrics grew in response to the demand for services.

Among the specialists joining the Medical Center were Dr. Jeanette Pullen, who developed the children's cancer program at UMMC, and Dr. David Watson, in cardiology, and Dr. Bobby Heath, in surgery, who together diagnosed and treated children with congenital heart conditions.

"During my third and fourth year of medical school, I shadowed consistently with Dr. Watson, who was one of the senior faculty in the Division of Pediatric Cardiology," Taylor said. "Dr. Watson introduced me to the subspecialty of pediatric cardiology, and I immediately knew that I wanted to become a pediatric cardiologist. Dr. Watson had written a paperback handbook, and for years I carried that with me. As a fourth-year student, I did an away rotation at Vanderbilt, and while I was there, I met several of the cardiologists and decided that I wanted to go there for residency and hopefully fellowship training."

David Watson

Standards of care changed over the years, and by the 1990s, additional hospital and clinic space was needed. In 1991, what is now known as the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children's of Mississippi opened, thanks to $2 million raised by the Junior League of Jackson. It would soon be followed by the Blair E. Batson Tower, which was opened in 1997.

Evans

"Dr. Norman C. Nelson (then vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine) gave me the OK to build if we could raise the money for a new children's hospital," said Evans, "and within that year, consultants in strategic planning said that the number one thing UMMC needed to do was to replace its children's hospital."

That funding got an unexpected boost a few months later, Evans said. "The grateful grandmother of a patient came over and said she wanted to leave us a little something. That 'little something' was 20,000 shares of Anheuser-Busch stock. At about $27 a share, that was $540,000, which we used to beef up the foundation and the lobby. That gave us the footprint to build on."

Evans, an alumnus of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, came to UMMC in 1983 after being recruited by Batson, also a Vanderbilt graduate. "I was so impressed with the faculty. Everyone was working hard and practicing good medicine."

Servings as the chief of pediatric neurology and sole pediatric neurologist, Evans was on call 24/7 to care for the children in the state with neurological conditions.

By 1989, Evans was tapped to chair the Department of Pediatrics.

"I went in with a wish list of additional faculty members, a new budget and a computer," he said. The department, at that point, did not have its first desktop computer yet.

He also requested the authorization to establish a community group to raise funds, build awareness and encourage volunteerism for Mississippi's only children's hospital. Following his appointment as chair, Dr. Evans and his wife, Lynn, worked tirelessly to create Friends of Children's Hospital.

While the children's hospital was state-of-the-art when designed and opened, by the mid-2010s space was at a premium. Advances in care called for changes in outpatient specialty care and additional room in neonatal and pediatric intensive care units. A pediatric imaging center and more space for surgery were needed.

Learning of those needs, Joe Sanderson Jr., then CEO and board chairman of Sanderson Farms, and his wife, Kathy, launched the Campaign for Children's of Mississippi with a $10 million personal donation. The Sandersons chaired the $100 million capital campaign that helped build the tower named for them.

Strong leadership

Taylor, who had been a resident and fellow in pediatric cardiology at Vanderbilt, was hired by Evans as a faculty member in 2011.

"When I came back to UMMC in 2011 to work in Pediatric Critical Care and help start a cardiac surgical program, I was thrilled to be back home," she said. "It was a full-circle moment when Dr. Evans hired me as a faculty member."

Evans retired as chair in 2011.

"Those were the happiest days of my life," he said of his time leading the department. "I am very pleased with my career at UMMC. I achieved what I wanted to achieve, but it was time for a new generation to take pediatric care further."

Barr

Evans was followed by Dr. Rick Barr, who had served as chief of the Division of Pediatric Critical Care at Vanderbilt and vice chair for clinical research at the University of Cincinnati.

"I had worked with Rick for many years at Vanderbilt," Taylor said. "He was a wonderful leader of our department, and I was so honored when he suggested that I become the interim chair when he left in 2017."

Taylor said leading the department came to her as a surprise.

"While being the chair was not part of my plan, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of the Children's of Mississippi leadership," she said.

Taylor was named as the Suzan B. Thames Chair of Pediatrics Dec. 1, 2017, the same day ground was broken on the Kathy and Joe Sanderson Tower, the seven-story children's hospital expansion opened in 2020.

"I love being part of changing the future of health care for the children in our state, both on this campus and through outreach to cover all parts of Mississippi," she said. "It has been the highlight of my career to be part of something so special."

Education and research

Pediatric research is woven into education in the Department of Pediatrics, which has been home to the state's only pediatric residency program since 1956. Medical students, residents, fellows and faculty members frequently collaborate on research as part of pediatric education.

In 2018, these studies resulted in the inaugural Pediatric Research Dayat UMMC. Since then, the annual event showcases discoveries in children's health care.

UMMC's Department of Pediatrics also includes PReCEP, an acronym for the Pediatric Research and Clinical Education Program, a program that introduces medical students to pediatrics as a future career path.

Crout

Since the Department of Pediatrics' start, the size of its trainee groups has grown tremendously, said Dr. Jeffrey Crout, professor of pediatric hospital medicine and program director of UMMC's Pediatric Residency Program.

"We are now home to 50 categorical pediatric residents, 24 combined medicine/pediatric residents, an associated child-neurology residency program and five pediatric fellowships," he said. "Additionally, our community outreach has expanded to include not only the Jackson Metropolitan area, but also clinics and facilities from the Gulf Coast in the south to Tupelo in our northeast corner."

The education of the next generation of pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists is an essential part of the Department of Pediatrics as well as to providing health care to children throughout the state, Taylor said.

"We have a large network of care for both general pediatrics and subspecialty care and have now formed affiliations with other hospital systems to provide pediatric and newborn services so patients can have state-of-the-art care no matter where they live," she said. "I am so very proud to be a part of it."