Philip Sunshine, 94, dies; Doctor who did the pioneer of the treatment of early babies

Philip Sunshine, a Stanford University doctor who played an important role in the establishment of neonatology as a medical specialty and revolutionized the care of early and critically sick newborns, who had previously had little chance of survival, died on April 5 in his house in Cupertino, California. He was 94.

His death was confirmed by his daughter Diana Sunshine.

Before Dr. Sunshine and a handful of other doctors in the late 1950s and early 1960s to care for Vormies, died more than half of these unimaginably fragile patients shortly after birth. Insurance companies would not pay to treat them.

Dr. Sunshine, a pediatric gastroenterologist, believed that many premature babies could be saved. In Stanford, he pushed on doctors from several disciplines to treat them in special intensive care units. Together with his colleagues, he was pioneering methods for feeding atrials with the formula and supporting their breathing with ventilation devices.

“We were able to keep babies alive who would not have survived,” said Dr. Sunshine in 2000 in an oral history interview with the Pediatric History Center of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “And now everyone simply takes this for granted.”

The early 1960s were a turning point in the care of early babies.

After the Oxford English Dictionary, the word neonatology was used for the first time in the book “Diseases of Newborn” by Alexander J. Schaffer, a pediatrician in Baltimore. At that time, Stanford's neonatology department – one of the first in the country – was in operation.

In 1963 President John F. Kennedy, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, was born prematurely for almost six weeks. He died 39 hours later. The crisis developed on the front pages of the newspapers across the country and put pressure on the federal health authorities to assign money for newborn research.

“Kennedy story was a big turning point,” said Dr. Sunshine 1998 to Aha News, a publication by the American Hospital Association.

As head of Stanford's neonatology department from 1967 to 1989, Dr. Sunshine, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of doctors who worked in units for newborn intensive care units worldwide. When he retired in 2022 at the age of 92, the survival rate for babies born in 28 weeks was over 90 percent.

“Phil is one of the” originals “in neonatology, the neonatologist of a neonatologist, one of the best in our history”, David K. Stevenson, Dr. Sunshine's successor as head of Stanford's newborn department, wrote in 2011 in the Journal of Perinatology.

Dr. Sunshine realized that the care for atmosphere required both technical know -how and human connection. He asked the hospitals to allow parents to visit newborn intensive stations so that they could hold their children and felt that the skin-to-skin contact between mothers and babies was advantageous.

He also gave nurses more autonomy and encouraged them to comment when they thought doctors were wrong.

“Our nurses have always been very important supervisors,” said Dr. Sunshine in oral history. “During my entire career, I worked with a nursing staff who would often recognize problems with the baby before the doctors would do it, and they still do that now. Well, we have learned neonatology together.”

Cecele Quaintance, a newborn nurse who has been with Dr. Sunshine worked together, said in a blog post for Stanford Medicine's health that “there is this deep friendliness in Phil – for everyone, for everyone”.

“Everyone has the same level of importance for him,” she said, adding: “I saw families with crying when he was on duty because they were bound to him.”

The hours were long; The pressure was exceptional.

“He was a calming, calming presence and completely steadfast,” said Dr. Stevenson in an interview. “He would say:” If you spend the whole night in the hospital to work through your cock, what could be nicer than giving someone 80, 90 years of life? “

Philip Sunshine was born in Denver on June 16, 1930. His parents, Samuel and Mollie (Fox) Sunshine, had a pharmacy.

In 1952 he acquired his bachelor's degree at the University of Colorado and stayed there for the medical faculty and completed in 1955.

After his first year of life in Stanford, he was drafted into the US navy and served as a lieutenant. When he returned to Stanford in 1959, he trained under Louis Gluck, a pediatrician who later developed the modern intensive care unit for newborns at Yale University.

“He made me care for newborns and everything sounds so interesting,” said Dr. Sunshine.

At that time there was no neonatology scholarships, so Dr. Sunshine an advanced training in pediatric gastroenterology and a scholarship for pediatric metabolism.

“This was a very exciting time,” he said at the Stanford Medicine Children's Health Blog post. “People with different backgrounds brought their skills to the care of newborns: Lunge, cardiologists, people like me who were interested in Gi problems from newborns. I took up a lot of information and enthusiasm from them, and we had many ways to change the way babies were cultivated.”

Dr. Sunshine married Sara Elizabeth Vreeland in 1962, known as Beth.

Together with his wife and daughter Diana, he is survived by four other children, Rebecca, Samuel, Michael and Stephanie; And nine grandchildren.

In many ways, Dr. Sunshine's surname an aptronym – a word that is ideally suited for its line -up and its type.

“He was completely separated from being the father or the grandfather of neonatology, and really brought sunshine into every room,” said Susan R. Hintz, neonatologist in Stanford. “He was a calming presence, especially in these very stressful moments. Nurses would tell me all the time:” He is the one that everyone remembers. “