Connect Newsletter (April 30, 2026)

Happy Employee Appreciation Month!

May is Employee Appreciation Month at Cook Children’s! Throughout May, we’ll be celebrating with campus cookouts, activities, and special offers just for employees. Join in on the fun no matter where you work across the system! Click the Team Experience site to view a message from Rick Merrill, President and CEO of Cook Children’s Health Care System.  

• Campus Cookouts are coming to several Cook Children’s locations, and funds are available for off-site and fully remote teams to plan their own celebration. Click here to see the dates.
• Two Cook Children’s Weekend(s) at the Ballpark - discount tickets
  • May 8-10: Rangers vs. Chicago Cubs
  • May 29-31: Rangers vs. Kansas City Royals
• An Evening with The Cliburn - discounted concert tickets
• Healthcare Hero Day at the Frisco RoughRiders – discount baseball tickets
• NRH2O Family Water Park – discount day passes
• Brain Break word search challenge - enter for a chance to win a Starbucks gift card
• Send in your team photos from May events for us to post on the Team Experience site & you’ll have a chance to win a set of Kudos Cards for your department

Be sure to visit the Team Experience CookNet site and Employee Appreciation Month 2026: Events and Special Offers page for full details.

Welcome Cook Children's Pediatric Specialties Plano to System

Join us in welcoming Cook Children's Pediatric Specialties Plano to the Cook Children's Health Care System! Beginning May 4, families living in the Plano area have another close-to-home location for connecting with Cook Children’s Health Care System and its vast network of pediatric specialty physicians. This will be the seventh multispecialty clinic dedicated to providing high-quality care throughout the Metroplex. 

This new location will offer pediatric physicians specializing in neurology, endocrinology, surgery, pulmonology, gastroenterology, nephrology, urology, plastic surgery and orthopedics.

To learn more about the Plano clinic, visit Checkup Newsroom. 

Listen to Untold Podcast Featuring Daniel Guzman, M.D.

For Daniel Guzman, M.D., Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician and Medical Director of the Aim for Safety Program, has always been about more than treating patients - it’s about protecting communities. In this episode of Untold: The Stories of Cook Children’s, Dr. Guzman shares his journey from growing up in a small town in South Texas to becoming an emergency physician at Cook Children’s, where he has served for more than two decades.

To listen to the full episode visit, Connect Newsroom 

Honoring Years of Dedication

Please join us in celebrating and congratulating more than 1,000 Cook Children’s team members who reached a milestone year of service from five to 40 years between May 1, 2025, and April 30, 2026. Their dedication, compassion, and commitment to living our values each day truly make a difference for our teams, our patients, and our families. Click here to view and recognize all of our 2025–2026 Service Award recipients.

On Thursday, April 23 we honored these recipients at a special Service Awards Celebration and Dinner, an evening filled with connection and a few moments of magic. Click here to view photos and highlights from the event.

Share How Our Benefits Have Helped You

We want to hear from you! The Benefits Team is looking for employees to share personal testimonials about how our benefits have made a difference in their lives.

Your stories help us show how we care for our people and their families beyond the workplace. Did our benefits help you earn an advanced degree, navigate a medical journey, create a healthier lifestyle, or find more time for your household? However you’ve used these benefits to improve your life, sharing your experience helps us highlight our commitment to the Cook Children’s culture outside of the workplace.

Please share your experience by emailing the Benefits Team at AskBenefits@cookchildrens.org by May 31. With your permission, these testimonials may be used in the future to highlight our employee experience. 

Share Your Content with Us

Do you have any tips, ideas or content you would like us to know about? We want to hear from you! Please view our SharePoint site and email us at InternalCommunications@cookchildrens.org. 

Check our CookNet calendar for more system-wide events and to find more content about our employees and news you need to know, bookmark our Connect Newsroom website.