Hingham Teen Advocates For Children's Hospital Medical Education

senior Leanna Healy will never forget the  medical students at the Boston Children’s Hospital that saved her life.

In February 2010, during her freshman year at high school, Leanna, then age 15,  was rushed to the Boston hospital with a dangerously high blood pressure of 190 over 170. Her health had been deteriorating.  She was losing weight, sweating profusely and experiencing severe headaches.  She had lost some of her vision and was fatigued.  Local hospitals thought she had Mono and did not know what was wrong with her.  Leanna’s health eventually advanced to the point that it would have soon been fatal.

“She looked very pale or extremely bright red and she was always hot,” Leanna’s mother, Terri Healy said. “She couldn’t cool off no matter what, and she couldn’t keep any weight on.”

It wasn’t until medical students from Children's Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) Payment Program  detected an extremely rare type of tumor on her adrenal gland, called a pheochromocytoma, that Leanna’s  health took a turn for the better.

Leanna’s mother, said the students believed her daughter had the “silent tumor” for seven years before it was finally discovered and said it was very hard to diagnose.

“Two and a half years ago we didn’t know what was wrong with her or if she would even live, we just knew that she was very sick,” Leanna’s mother Terri said. “If not for the expert doctors and staff at Boston Children’s, Leanna’s rare condition could have been fatal.”

After stabilizing her blood pressure, Leanna was given  surgery and had her whole adrenal gland removed. The surgery saved her life, and after two years of gaining her weight back, building muscle strength and obtaining a stronger energy level, the Hingham student finally felt like a normal teen again.

So earlier this year when Leanna, now 17,  was asked to advocate for the CHGME in Washington DC, she gladly agreed- after all it was the doctors from this program who were able to  diagnose her with this near fatal rare-disease.

Children’s Hospital’s GME Payment Program provides federal funds to the America’s freestanding children's hospitals to help them maintain their graduate medical education programs that train resident physicians.

Graduate Medical Education follows graduation from medical school and can take between three and seven years to complete, depending on the medical, dental or podiatric specialty track chosen. Teaching hospitals that treat adults receive similar funding from Medicare.  Only 55  U.S. hospitals participate in the program, which enables them to provide medical education to graduates of medical schools, enhance research capabilities and care for vulnerable and underserved children

“CHGME is so important because that’s how pediatric training is available to doctors,” Terri said. “Without this program, who knows what could have happened to Leanna.  If Leanna was in a part of a country where there was no great pediatricians and they  weren’t constantly being trained, they wouldn’t of caught what she had. She was number 40 in 90 years (at Children’s Hospital) to have that tumor- that’s how rare it is. And that’s why Leanna had to tell her story.”

Leanna and her parents visited the Nation’s capital along with the Children’s Hospital in July and met with Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, Hingham’s current Congressman Bill Keating, and staff members from Senator John Kerry and Congressman Stephen Lynch’s office and told her story.

She stressed to them that without  the medical students from CHGME, she would not be living, as they were the ones who correctly found her tumor.

Leanna said that both Brown and Keating listened very intensely and were amazed that medical students from the CHGME saved her life.

“I felt really honored to advocate for the Boston Children’s Hospital, and I’m making sure that everyone gets the proper care that they need and it feels great to have the support of our representatives and senators,” Leanna said. “It was one of the greatest moments of my life.”

Leanna is now entering her senior year at Hingham High School where she is looking at colleges and hopes to continue volunteering with the Boston Children’s Hospital.