Fighting for lifetimes: She saves premature babies

Dr. Gail Besner holds her hand out flat to illustrate the size of the premature babies she has dedicated her life to saving.

“These babies are literally the size of your hand,” she says. “When I have to tell a parent their baby is not going to survive, or has died, it takes a little more out of my heart each time.

“But my response is to work even harder because these babies have been robbed of any future they could have had. When you save the life of a child, you save an entire lifetime.”

Dr. Besner is the chief of pediatric surgery at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a professor in the Ohio State University College of Medicine. This year, she was named a Distinguished University Professor, Ohio State’s highest faculty honor—the first surgeon to receive the distinction and first awardee from Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

A pioneering surgeon-scientist, Dr. Besner’s work has transformed the fields of pediatric surgery and neonatal intestinal disease. Specifically, Dr. Besner’s fight is against necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), an intestinal disease that kills up to half of the premature babies it affects.

“Your baby can look fine at noon and be dead by 4 p.m. due to NEC,” Dr. Besner says. “It’s a cruel disease.”