Children First. Always.

The Hospital for Special Surgery may be world-renowned for fixing broken hips, bum knees and aching backs, but we’ve never forgotten our roots as a children’s hospital. From the very first day we opened our doors, in 1863, young patients have always come first.

At that time, the country was engulfed in a civil war, and resources were tight. While most hospitals were turning away children and teenagers in need, we were busy developing a facility just for them. Our founder, Dr. James A. Knight, rounded up a group of high-powered philanthropists in New York City and created the Hospital of the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled (now HSS). The 28-bed facility, designed to care for children with musculoskeletal conditions, was located inside of his brownstone on the Lower East Side of New York City. In those early years, young patients stayed with us for up to two years at a time; we provided them with school in the morning, physical therapy in the afternoon and three nutritious meals daily.

How things have changed since then! Today, most of our patients’ hospital stays are measured in days, not years. And our facilities have only gotten bigger and better. In fact, each year, we treat more than 20,000 children and teens in our sprawling, 31,000-square-foot Lerner Children’s Pavilion. Among the state-of-the-art features are a specialized, child-friendly pediatric gym; an expanded pediatric imaging suite; a 7,000-square-foot pediatric rehabilitation center; and private rooms specially designed for pediatric musculoskeletal patients and their families.

Though HSS—and modern medicine—look a lot different these days, our mission remains the same as it did the day we opened: to do whatever it takes to help all of our patients have a better quality of life. Read more about the history of Hopsital for Special Surgery.