The young neurosurgeon in training couldn’t shake the sense of devastation. A baby died in his arms as he tried to resuscitate her.
Her grandmother had tripped in the kitchen with a pot of boiling water, causing severe burns as the 11-month-old baby crawled across the floor. Dr. Kevin J. Tracey was the surgical resident on duty when she was brought to the hospital. He tended to baby Janice for a month, believing her treatment had put her on a path to recovery.
Then, without warning, her health deteriorated. Nothing in medical school prepared Tracey for that moment: holding a fragile, beautiful baby as she took her last breath.
“The fact she died was tragic and haunting and the source of many nightmares,” said Tracey, now the president and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health, one of the largest hospital systems in the United States. “It was also the source of extraordinary frustration because there was no way then for us to understand or explain to her mother and her grandmother why she died.”
The trajectory of Tracey’s career changed with that death in 1985. He emerged more motivated than ever to help those like Janice.
