Hospital May

General information

Boston Children's Hospital is a 395-bed comprehensive center for pediatric health care. As one of the largest pediatric medical centers in the United States, Boston Children's offers a complete range of health care services for children from birth through 21 years of age. (Our Advanced Fetal Care Center can begin interventions at 15 weeks gestation, and in some situations, we treat adults.)

Boston Children's records approximately 24,943 inpatient admissions each year, and our 228 specialized clinical programs schedule more than 557,620 visits annually. Additionally, the hospital performed 26,534 surgical procedures and 158,791 radiological examinations last year.

Boston Children's is home to the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric hospital. More than 1,100 scientists, including nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 on-staff members of the Institute of Medicine and 9 members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, comprise our research community. Current initiatives have attracted a record $225 million in annual funding, including more federal funding than any other pediatric facility.

In the John F. Enders Pediatric Research Laboratories, named for the Boston Children's researcher and Nobel Prize recipient who cultured the polio and measles viruses, hundreds of laboratory researchers and physician investigators search for answers to some of the most perplexing diseases.

In 2003, a generous philanthropic gift made the 295,000 square foot Karp Family Research Laboratories possible. The building increased our research space by more than 60 percent. The Karp family gift is just one of many important gifts that support Boston Children's vital research enterprise.

Through the years, scientists at Boston Children's have set the pace in pediatric research, identifying treatments and therapies for many debilitating diseases, including those of adulthood.