Fitch Family Comprehensive Pediatric Rehabilitation Program at UNC Children’s
The Fitch Family Comprehensive Pediatric Rehabilitation Program is dedicated to providing life-changing services to children across North Carolina. Through this innovative program, we offer specialized care in physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and child life services to help children recover, grow, and thrive. As we continue to expand our program, we focus on two critical areas: recruiting world-class talent and enhancing access to virtual care for families in all 100 counties.
With your support, we can continue to provide the highest level of care and reach even more children who need us.
Our “Why”
An Exceptional Need, Close to Home
On March 5th, 2021, our 10-year-old son Lee was struck by a moving vehicle that broke his ribs, back, and skull, leaving him unconscious with a severe traumatic brain injury. It was the scariest moment of our lives.
Thankfully, the Chapel Hill community came together to support Lee, who was stabilized at the UNC Children’s pediatric intensive care unit. But that was just the beginning. As then-PICU Chief Benny Joyner, MD, says of brain injuries like Lee’s: “Time is brain.”
The PICU saves lives. But rehabilitation determines the quality of that saved life. Joyner says rehab must start immediately and that the stakes are extremely high.
The Fitch Family was shocked to discover that UNC Children’s does not have a comprehensive pediatric rehabilitation center. After much worrying and scrambling, Lee was forced to travel by ambulance to Atlanta for rehab. He was extremely lucky that his family could make this happen and that his dad could come with him.
Unfortunately, due to scarcity and demand of rehab centers, many children like Lee Fitch in the Triangle aren’t so lucky.
At the time this campaign was started, and this sentence written, three children are waiting for an open bed in a rehab center. Day in and day out, they wait. Their conditions require that they remain hospitalized. The clock ticks. And time is brain.
Enough is enough.
We couldn’t just stand by while other kids missed out on much needed rehabilitation, so we started the Fitch Family Comprehensive Pediatric Rehabilitation Program at UNC Children’s to ensure that kids like Lee receive the care they need right here in the center of North Carolina, allowing for healing while being surrounded by their loving family and community.
Every day, a child is admitted to UNC Children’s to receive care for a medical condition or traumatic event that has the potential to adversely affect them and their family for the rest of their lives.
Often, the excellent and timely care provided by pediatric experts from UNC Children’s leads to a full and complete recovery. In many other instances, however, hospitalized children can face months, years and sometimes lifetimes dealing with medical issues and dependence on others to complete even simple tasks.
Please join us today to change the course for countless kids.
Campaign Progress
Phase 1 (completed!): $3 Million – Enabling Care Coordination and Family Support
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Progress: $3 million raised!
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This phase focused on enabling care coordination and providing family support to improve access to rehabilitation services. It has been successfully completed.
Phase 2: $3 Million – Endowments to Support the Recruitment and Retention of Experts in the Field
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Progress: $1 million raised so far!
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Phase 2 is focused on recruiting and retaining top-tier professionals to strengthen the Fitch Family Comprehensive Pediatric Rehabilitation Program as it grows toward its eventual home in the new freestanding North Carolina Children’s Hospital.
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Goal: Raise $3 million for:
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$2 million to fund an endowed professorship to attract world-class experts in pediatric rehabilitation.
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$1 million to establish key positions to support the program’s growth, including leadership roles in Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, and Child Life services.
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Phase 3: $2 Million – Statewide Virtual Care Outreach
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Goal: Raise $2 million to expand virtual care services and ensure that children in all 100 counties across North Carolina have access to specialized rehabilitation services.
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Progress: Fundraising will begin upon the completion of Phase 2.
As we continue to develop this program, it will eventually be integrated into the freestanding North Carolina Children’s Hospital, where it will be able to serve even more children with advanced facilities and enhanced services. Your support is crucial to helping us achieve these goals and continue providing life-changing care for children throughout the state.
Our Partners
We are so grateful for our amazing partners. The suffering of innumerable children will be relieved due to their generosity and efforts.
- Jersey Mikes
- Design Matters
- Mack and Sally Brown
- Rivaly Roundup
- Oak Foundation
Update from Lee Fitch
Lee is now in 8th grade, 14 years old. He still enjoys playing baseball, basketball and golf; while adding hunting and fishing to his hobbies. Lee loves being with friends and family. He has had several medical diagnoses that are secondary to his TBI, but everything is managed with medication or coaching and he’s doing really well!
Faculty Spotlight: Theodore Yip, MD
Theodore Yip, MD, Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Theodore Yip, MD, is a pediatric physiatrist at UNC Children’s. He specializes in taking care of children with congenital and acquired disabilities. His day-to-day practice includes seeing children in clinic, working with physical, occupational, and speech therapists, providing bracing and equipment needs, and caring for children in the hospital who need rehabilitation. Learn more.
More About Comprehensive Pediatric Rehabilitation
The Fitch Family Comprehensive Pediatric Rehabilitation Program at UNC Children’s aims to provide both inpatient and outpatient services across the entire continuum of care, including:
• Coordinated, multidisciplinary rehabilitative care that begins soon after initial admission to the hospital
• Comprehensive acute inpatient pediatric rehabilitation
• Day rehab programs and
• Outpatient medical and therapy visits at a state-of-the-art pediatric rehabilitation center
In addition, patients will receive virtual follow-ups through telemedicine, teletherapy and home health services, ensuring that these children regain the quality of life that has been threatened by disease or trauma.
The Fitch Family Comprehensive Pediatric Rehabilitation Program at UNC Children’s will include critical healing spaces and equipment as well as allow us to attract the best specialists in pediatric rehabilitation medicine (PRM), pediatric therapies and related specialties to Chapel Hill to treat, educate and support these families.
Our goal for all children across our state is the same as our goal for Lee – to provide the compassionate care necessary to grow up happy, healthy and independent. With your support, we can reach our $8 million goal and begin to create transformational change for vulnerable children and their families.
For more information, please contact:
Mary Gard, Executive Director of Development, Children’s
UNC Health Foundation
919-445-6659
[email protected]