"A Place Where Patients Feels Like Family." Cook Children's Turns 105

Cook Children's turns 105 years old this month and our organization is only growing stronger because of people like you. We ask that you take a few minutes of your day to watch this inspiring video about our history and the people who make our Promise come to life.

The text:

At Cook Children’s, we’ve spent the last 105 years building a health care home for children all across North Texas.

A center where safety, imagination and collaboration spark innovation and progress.

A community that connects kindness, generosity and respect with the delivery of modern medicine. A place where patients feel like family.

It started with one working woman and one patient, a fragile newborn, and one wealthy woman, and her desire to honor her husband, while caring for the sick.

A rags and riches story that, combined, built one of the finest pediatric medical institutions in the country.

One patient became hundreds. Hundreds became thousands, and thousands became over 1.5 million patient encounters every year.

We’ve come a long way since our humble beginnings as a 30-bed hospital for infants and toddlers.

Our cornerstone, Cook Children’s Medical Center – Fort Worth, is now one of the largest freestanding pediatric medical centers in the country, with 444 patient beds.

It is home to top medical minds, ever-advancing technologies, leading-edge clinical research and nationally recognized services.

Our health system’s reach stretches far outside the heart of Fort Worth to every corner of Texas and beyond.

Under our signature blue peaks, we treat children from virtually every state in the nation and 32 countries around the world.

Spread across North Texas are our 75 primary and specialty care physician offices, seven Neighborhood Clinics, seven Urgent Care Centers, three surgery centers and two medical centers, including our newest addition — Cook Children’s Medical Center – Prosper.

It’s our Promise to improve the well-being of every child in our care and our communities. That’s why we’ve built a health care system, not just a hospital.

Cook Children’s network includes health services, a physician network, a health plan, the Child Study Center and the Cook Children’s Health Foundation.

Together with our medical centers and clinics, these services connect the dots of care from first steps to adulthood, hospital to home, primary care to specialty medicine and short-term care to long-term health.

We’re nearly 9,000 dedicated team members strong.

With four locations in Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, thousands of children and families rely on Cook Children’s Home Health for in-home medical care, rehabilitative therapies and equipment.

Cook Children’s Health Plan fills the financial gap for low-income families who, otherwise, may not be able to access or afford care for their children.

Well-child visits, immunizations, behavioral health care coordination and even pre and postnatal care — they are all accessible through Cook Children’s Health Plan and our large network of physicians and providers.

Cook Children’s Physician Network employs more than 700 physicians, surgeons, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified registered nurse anesthetists. It is the largest pediatric multi-specialty physician group in North Texas.

Each month, a number of Network specialty physicians even travel to seven West Texas markets in order to serve patients close to their homes.

All of these services, programs, professionals and the technology they employ put Cook Children’s at the top of the list of world[1]class medical providers for even the most complex cases.

Those moments of magic - big and small - happen every day all throughout our system.

You see them when patients enjoy the comforting cuddles of a Sit…Stay…Play therapy dog.

You hear them in the voices of relieved parents who find help and hope for their struggling teen’s mental health.

And, when a child rings the bell signaling the completion of their cancer treatment … pure magic!

But we didn’t build all of this alone. We stand on the shoulders of members of the community. Donations to the Cook Children’s Health Foundation allow us to care for our families when and how they need us.

Sometimes that’s by providing new technology or equipment, funding research trials, helping a family with prescription costs or by giving a parent a clean change of clothes during an unexpected stay.

Our Health Foundation helps connect the dots between those who want to help and the needs of our patients in order to create the magical experiences that Cook Children’s is known for.

Over a century ago, our founders promised to care for every child no matter their family’s ability to pay. Today, that Promise lives on stronger than ever.

As the communities we serve continue to grow, we’ll keep looking at the world through the eyes of children and their families as we shape health care suited to them and their needs now and in the centuries to come.

So, on our 105th birthday, we're reminded of the power of one.

The one moment that changes everything for the child.

The one breakthrough technology that revolutionizes surgery.

The one donor who believed in the impossible.

And the one patient who taught us to hope.