David Hackam begins the interview this way: “Let me tell you my story.” Then he tells it—or, swimmer that he is, dives into it, starting with the life-changing event; the premature, failing 2-week-old-newborn with the distended belly who he cared for as a newly minted pediatric surgeon. In the operating room Hackam saw pink intestine turned black, the scourge of necrotizing enterocolitis, the leading cause of death and disability in premature infants. The newborn pulled through but Hackam had to remove more intestine in another surgery, and then in another.
“He’d get better and then worse,” Hackam recalls.
Hackam had saved what he could, but it was too little to sustain a young life—at 11 months of age, the infant died. The surgeon recalls being fixed on the limp child in his father’s arms, the nurses around them: “I decided then that this would be my life’s work, to understand how we can identify, prevent and treat diseases like this.”
The experience transformed the template of his career, his life. He was a pediatric surgeon mystified by disease, a surgeon who wanted to become a scientist as well. He took a sabbatical from residency training to pursue a Ph.D. in cell biology at the University of Toronto, which changed his view as a surgeon: “From that point on I approached every patient in a ‘what causes this disease’ kind of way.”
For Hackam, it was a natural evolution. Growing up as the son of a scientist and nurse in Stafford, England, in what he describes as an academic environment where curiosity and inquiry were nurtured daily, didn’t hurt. Becoming a surgeon scientist was hardly an unexpected path for Hackam.
“Surgery is the ultimate scientific pursuit because you’re repairing damaged tissue and that’s what scientists seek to do,” says Hackam. “Surgeons have always been on the forefront of medical research but you just don’t always hear about it.”
Dr. David Hackam | Surgeon-in-Chief Johns Hopkins Children's Center
A National Presence
It is hard not to have heard of David Hackam. His evolution as a surgeon scientist has been marked by a series of remarkable achievements. At the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine he was the Watson Family Professor of Surgery and professor of surgery, cell biology and physiology, the associate dean for medical student research, and co-director of the Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment Center of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Also notable, since 2015 he has been the pediatric surgeon-in-chief and co-director of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. So what brought him to Baltimore?
The answer is more about what Hackam brought to Baltimore, says Ted Chambers, administrator for the Department of Pediatrics. Three years earlier Hopkins had completed construction of the new Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center Building, a state-of-the-art children’s hospital featuring 10 specialty-customized pediatric operating suites. Hackam, a visionary who could attract, recruit and mentor like-minded souls, wanted forward thinking academic surgeons with strong research records.
“David Hackam stood out as a magnificent academic clinician, scientist and leader who would draw people of the same ilk to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center,” says Chambers. “We also knew his background and the way he looks at pediatrics would take us to new places.”
“He’s a national presence—people know him through his research work, through his leadership in the Society of University Surgeons,” adds pediatric surgeon Dylan Stewart. “He’s a known commodity and people are very drawn to him.”
A Blueprint for Excellence
Hackam was equally drawn to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, which he saw as a top-down patient- and family-centered care institution—a model, he says, essential for 21st century health care facilities to be successful: “The leadership, faculty and staff here all live and breathe family centered care. It’s a pretty apparent cultural thing here—you sense it as soon as you walk into the place.”
Once at the helm, Hackam immediately molded a strategic plan grounded in innovative multidisciplinary approaches to solving complex problems unique in children, what he calls his “blueprint for excellence in pediatric surgery.” Among his goals: meet unmet clinical needs, tap into new patient pools out of state, recruit top surgeons and staff members, build relationships with pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists in the community, set a standard for excellence—and specialize. Through the blueprint, Hackam also envisioned six multidisciplinary surgical centers and a new emphasis on research excellence in pediatric surgery, which would translate into robust recruitment, mentoring, research training and grant support.
Needless to say, such institution-changing initiatives have posed great challenges. How has David Hackam managed it all?
Through collaboration and consensus building with colleagues, he says, but also through his pre-dawn swims: “While underwater, I’ve written grants, speeches, tackled problems large and small, and had the opportunity to reflect on progress from day to day. Plus, starting the day underwater means things can only get better.”
Indeed, they have.