CHOP Surgeon Holly L. Hedrick, MD Wins Strittmatter Award

The Philadelphia County Medical Society (PCMS) has awarded Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) surgeon Holly L. Hedrick, MD the 2023 Strittmatter Award, its most prestigious scientific honor. The award recognizes a PCMS physician who has demonstrated the most valuable contributions to the practice of surgical or medical healing.

Dr. Hedrick is a pediatric and fetal surgeon in the Richard D. Wood Jr. Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment at CHOP, Co-director of the Neonatal Surgical Team, the Surgical Director of the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Program, and the Founder and Director of the Pulmonary Hypoplasia Program. She holds the Louise Schnaufer Endowed Chair in Pediatric Surgery and is also an investigator in the Center for Fetal Research and a Professor of Surgery in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

As an expert in the field of fetal and neonatal surgery, Dr. Hedrick specializes in the surgical management of birth defects, like congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), both before and after birth, as well as the separation of conjoined twins. Dr. Hedrick leads CHOP’s multidisciplinary CDH care, from prenatal diagnosis through long term follow up, and is known for having the largest CDH volume of CDH patients in the world. She is dedicated to improving outcomes following surgical repair for these fragile infants who suffer long-term complications including pulmonary hypoplasia.

In 2004, Dr. Hedrick built the Pulmonary Hypoplasia Program (PHP), an interdisciplinary interprofessional team, to focus on the needs of children with surgical diagnoses that cause small lungs.  The PHP unites neonatology, cardiology, pulmonology, psychology, audiology, gastroenterology, nutrition, and other fields as needed to give families comprehensive coordinated attention.  Today, this program cares for more than 1,000 patients from birth through school age.

Her research into CDH led to her and her team being named a CHOP Frontier Program in 2018 for their focus on improving the lives of patients born with CDH. The program recognizes visionary research that translates to cutting-edge clinical care, supporting focused aims to improve outcomes. The team’s focus on eliminating mortality and morbidity through research and the development of novel devices continues today with many breakthroughs on the horizon in the coming year.

A prolific and dedicated researcher, Dr. Hedrick has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance and was awarded the March of Dimes “Citizen of the Year” Award in 2006.

She appeared in a three-part documentary series on PBS called TWICE BORN: Stories from the Special Delivery Unit. The Emmy® Award-winning documentary offered a look inside the Richard D. Wood Jr. Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment and its unique Garbose Family Special Delivery Unit at CHOP. Dr. Hedrick was most recently featured on the Today Show representing the team that separated conjoined twins, Addy and Lily Altobelli.

Dr. Hedrick earned her undergraduate degree from Indiana University and her medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine. She completed her surgical residency at Brigham & Women’s Hospital before joining CHOP in 1998, first as a pediatric surgical fellow and later as an attending surgeon. This fall, she will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award from Indiana University, the highest honor bestowed by the university’s College of Arts and Sciences.

“I am honored to receive this award from the Philadelphia County Medical Society and am so grateful to the patients and families who have put their trust in me over the years to improve the trajectory of their lives,” Dr. Hedrick said. “I am lucky to be supported by a brilliant team at CHOP, and together we will continue working to improve the lives of children in Philadelphia and around the world.”

“Dr. Hedrick is a world-class surgeon, whose expertise, tenacity, and compassion have been a gift to so many patients and families and to those of us who have the pleasure of working with her at CHOP,” said N. Scott Adzick, MD, the Surgeon-in-Chief of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Founder and Director of the Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment. “We congratulate her on this well-deserved honor.”

The Strittmatter Award is named after Isidore P. Strittmatter, MD, the 63rd president of PCMS, who established the award in 1923. The award commends the recipient’s contribution to one of the fundamental sciences of medicine, having a beneficial impact on either surgery or medicine.