Hometown Glory

Texas Children's scores big in prestigious hospital rankings

US News & World Report has released its Best Children's Hospitals 2013-2014 ranking and Texas Children's Hospital in Houston owns one of the top spots.

In addition to coming in at No. 3 nationwide in the Cardiology and Heart Surgery specialty, as well as No. 3 for Pulmonology, the local pediatric facility scored high in six specialties: Cancer; cardiology and heart surgery; gastroenterology and GI surgery; nephrology; neurology and neurosurgery; and pulmonology.

Texas Children's also ranked No. 4 on the Best Children's Hospitals Honor Roll, following Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Boston Children's Hospital and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

US News issues separate rankings for children's hospitals and other hospitals and traditionally releases the lists about a month apart. The 2013-14 rankings for Best Hospitals is expected to be released later this summer.

Houston's world-renowned institutions made a strong showing in the Best Hospitals 2012-2013 ranking, based on survey results from nearly 10,000 specialists across the nation, and released last July. The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, which is planning an expansion to New Jersey, ranked No. 1 among Best Cancer Hospitals.

TIRR Memorial Hermann, a 119-bed specialty facility famous for helping out Gabrielle Giffords and other high-profile patients, took No. 3 among the Best Rehabilitation Hospitals, after the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation.

Methodist Hospital took the No. 1 overall ranking among facilities in the Houston metropolitan area, followed by St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center and the Menninger Clinic. Find the top 15 hospitals in the Houston region here.

Editor's note: A US News & World Report editor complained that an earlier version of this story played up the 2012-13 rankings, making hospitals think they were for 2013-2014 even though they were correctly identified as the 2012-13 rankings in the CultureMap story.

Here is the link to the magazine's website with those full rankings right below the Children's Hospital rankings.

Texas Children's Hospital in Houston

Texas Children's Hospital building street scene

Courtesy photo

Texas Children's Hospital in Houston

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”