Recently my wife was invited to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to present her research. The invitation was also extended to me and I decided to accompany her. The story of St. Jude Hospital is awe-inspiring. I have decided to share it with the readers of SikhSpectrum.com
Some of the material I collected is reproduced below. I am highly impressed not only by medical research conducted there, which scientists in molecular biology and medicine are better equipped to understand and comment upon, but also by the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars are collected every year primarily through donations with an average individual donation of just $30.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has an outreach program that involves researchers from overseas actively pursuing cures for catastrophic illnesses among children. I can only hope that the story of Danny Thomas and St. Jude hospital will be repeated many times over everywhere.
We had the opportunity to meet and dine with some of the distinguished faculty. It was a pleasure. Finally, I thank Dr. Carl Jackson and his wife Ernestine and also Jennifer Hurlbert for taking the time to take Parmeet and I on a tour of the hospital and the city of Memphis. --Editor
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is named after St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes. When founder Danny Thomas was a struggling entertainer, he questioned whether God wanted him to have a show business career. During the Depression, Thomas went into a Detroit church and prayed to St. Jude. He simply asked “Show me my way in life, and I will build you a shrine” and placed his last seven dollars in St. Jude’s offering box. A few days later Thomas landed a job as headline comedian at the 5100 Club, which led to his career as a popular actor and producer. His promise was fulfilled with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
St. Jude Thaddeus was a cousin of Jesus Christ and was one of his Apostles. He is traditionally shown with a picture of Christ in his hand and holding a fuller’s bat. The fuller’s bat represents how St. Jude died. A mob, likely incited by his enemies, bludgeoned him to death with clubs.
By 1945, Danny Thomas’ career as an entertainer was beginning to flourish. Recalling the pleas to St. Jude and his pledge to build a shrine, Thomas sought advice from an old friend, Samuel Cardinal Stritch of Chicago, who led him to Memphis attorney Edward F. Barry. Out of their discussions came the commitment to build a research hospital for children and to locate it in Memphis. In 1985, Danny was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest civilian award. He was also presented the American flag that flew over the White House on that day.
The tomb of Danny Thomas and his wife lies on the grounds of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital next to a memorial built in his honor. Below the dome is the inscription of what Danny believed in the most: “No Child Should Die In The Dawn of Life.”
Today, St. Jude is the single largest center in the United States for the research and treatment of pediatric cancer and other childhood catastrophic diseases in terms of number of patients enrolled in research protocols and successfully treated. Working together, our physicians and scientists have pioneered treatments that have helped push the overall survival rate for childhood cancer from less than 20 percent in 1962 to more than 70 percent today. The cure rate for the most common form of childhood cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, has risen from 4 percent in 1962 to 80 percent today.
On average, 4,000 children are in active status at St. Jude at any given time, each admitted to one of the hospital’s research protocols or scientific treatment plans. Among the diseases treated at St. Jude are malignancies of the lymphatic system (Hodgkin disease), the blood-forming tissues (leukemias), the kidney (Wilms tumor), the bones (Ewing sarcoma and osteosarcoma) and brain tumors.
For a child to be admitted to St. Jude the disease must currently be under study. Children who meet medical requirements are treated without regard to families ability to pay for treatment. The American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC) is the fund-raising arm of the hospital. ALSAC covers all costs not covered by insurance for medical treatment rendered at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Families without insurance are never asked to pay.
Patients admitted to St. Jude could undergo surgery, chemotherapy or radiation or any combination of those treatments. Chemotherapy -- the use of anti-cancer drugs – is essential in the treatment of most types of childhood cancer. St. Jude treats most of its patients on an outpatient basis, reserving confinement to one of its 56 inpatient rooms only in critical cases.
The cost of lodging, meals and transportation for the patient and one parent is covered by the hospital. Patients required to stay in Memphis for the duration of the treatment usually stay at Target House or Ronald McDonald House at no cost to the families.
St. Jude provides total treatment for the child, such as comprehensive eye care, dental care, rehabilitation and neuropsychological services. Families can also take advantage offered by social workers, chaplains and Child Life, which offers special programs for patients and their siblings.
Danny Thomas and a St. Jude patient.
Preamble
To The Constitution
Of
American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities
ONE HUNDRED AND ONE YEARS AGO, our people began a migration to the blessed shores of these United States of America, seeking the freedoms and opportunities won for us by our founding fathers.
SINCE THAT TIME, we have increased greatly in numbers and have been enjoying the protection of the “Bill of Rights,” yet we have never done anything as a body to justify our use of these rights. True, many of our people have distinguished themselves as good Americans and have risen to lofty heights in their particular lines of endevour; but we have never really distinguished ourselves in a body. We have never united on a national basis in a common American cause.
THEREFORE: we who are proud of our heritage; having met in Washington D.C., in June, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-Seven, then again in Indianapolis, Indiana, in June, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-Seven, and now in Chicago, Illinois, on this Tenth Day of October, in the Year of Our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-Seven; have formed a non-profit, non-sectarian, charitable corporation titled ALSAC (American-Lebanese-Syrian Associated Charities) dedicated to the parable of the “Good Samaritan,” to love and care for our neighbor, regardless of color or creed. This dedication shall manifest itself in the maintenance of St. Jude’s Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, which in turn, is dedicated to the cure of leukemia and related blood diseases in children, absolutely free. In so doing, we shall serve God and Our Country and we shall serve the good names of our fathers and mothers who made possible our birth in America, the land of the free.
WE, at long, long, last, shall take our rightful place in this community of nationalities – standing proudly with our heads held high in the knowledge that we have earned the right to perpetuate the name of our heritage and maintain our reputation as unquestioned good American citizens.
WITH THESE THOUGHTS engraved in my mind and my heart, I shall call upon that powerful patron, St. Jude Thaddeus, to obtain for our organization the blessings of “Our Heavenly Father.”
To this Preamble I hereby dedicate my life and affix my signature.
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