March 2006
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In his own words: Allen Crocker, MD
Allen Crocker, MD, and Gretchen Wronski. He's authored eight textbooks and all but established the field of developmental pediatrics. He is loved by patients and families alike, and has dedicated more than 50 years of work at Children's Hospital Boston to serving children with developmental disabilities, their families and the community. He has made lasting changes to the way children with Down syndrome are perceived by society. And at 80 years old Allen Crocker, MD, is still caring for children with special needs.
Children's News sat down with Crocker, who recapped his recent history at Children's and shared a bit of his past. The following are excerpts from the conversation:
Well, I grew up in Boston, so I am in my home territory. Went to college at MIT, then to Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1948. I consider myself a true local person, so to be at Children's is very gratifying.
I came here because of Dr. Harry Shwachman (now deceased), who ran the Cystic Fibrosis Program. I worked as a medical student doing laboratory work. He encouraged me to stay on with the hospital. I then spent 15 years working with Dr. Sidney Farber in the Jimmy Fund building. It changed my life quite totally. Sidney is a huge hero of mine. He gave me energy and standards and clearly set me on my way.
With Farber, Crocker studied rare diseases like Niemann-Pick, a fatal genetic disorder now known as Crocker's syndrome in some circles. But a desire to combine scientific medicine and social need led him to developmental pediatrics.
In the middle 1960s, a new federal program came along that looked at special children and had the capacity to train young professionals. It was a very lively period, and I went to Washington frequently to meet with Health and Human Services to discuss the development of the program. With funding from that program we opened the Developmental Evaluation Center (DEC) at Children's in 1967. The DEC has been essentially my territory ever since. Many young professionals did graduate work there—pediatric fellows, students in psychiatry, nursing, psychology, physical therapy and so forth. It was a very happy ship.
Since then, the Developmental Medicine Center and Institute for Community Inclusion have incorporated many of the DEC's original services. It's now referred to as the LEND (Learning Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities) program. The good spirit generated by the original DEC team has persisted, although Ludwik Szymanski, MD, a psychiatrist, and I are the only original members in action. I've often thought that the field of developmental pediatrics basically got started here when we published our textbook "Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics" in 1983. We were the first to use the phrase "developmental-behavioral." We kind of hit the jack pot in giving a basic support to a new section of pediatrics.
These efforts continue today. Earlier this year, Harvard Medical School student Brian Skotko and I were together in Washington at the Kennedy Foundation. Last year, Senators Kennedy and Brownback proposed a new bill (S.609) that aims to improve the capacity of pediatricians and others working with children to council families with a Down syndrome diagnosis accurately and in an encouraging fashion. Brian's research revealed that historically clinicians haven't done a very good job supporting families during the first diagnostic encounter. We talked about ways to improve this significant problem. It's kind of intriguing to reflect that, 40 years later, I went back Washington. There are fortunately now large numbers of folks who are dedicated to improving quality of life for all children. To have shared in that has been an exciting career.
As for passing the torch, we occasionally get very strong students and fellows in the program—full of vitality and special devotion. That gives you heart. You know it's going to be okay; there are going to be people doing energetic work and seeing to it that the needs of special kids will not get lost.
Our success is symbolized by the way both pediatrics and the public feel about children with special needs. Back then, the child with mental retardation was not a prominent or conspicuous citizen of the child population. Now, if you take, for example, kids with Down syndrome, they are all over the place and full of cheer and have excellent supports. The public has underwritten this. There are now good special education laws and human rights provisions. So kids of all manner of special needs are in the middle of things. They're going to neighborhood schools, living with their families, going on to jobs.
The little ones with Down syndrome around here are full of important personal successes. I think I can fairly claim that the families of children with Down syndrome are no longer grieving; they are celebrating.
In January, Children's and New England Serve established the Allen C. Crocker Fellowship in honor of Crocker's 50 years of dedicated service to children with developmental disabilities, their families, the community and the developmental pediatrics field, and his devotion to improving systems of care for children and youth with special health care needs. The fellowship is open to candidates in any field of human services relevant to developmental pediatrics.
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