In May and early June 2007, the Illinois Department of Public Health and Illinois Emergency
Medical Services for Children presented the following recipients with the 2007 Ron W. Lee, MD,
Excellence in Pediatric Care Awards .
These awards are given in recognition of excellence to those dedicated to pediatric care and childhood injury prevention initiatives. The awards are presented each May in honor of Emergency
Medical Services Week. Dr. Lee was the Director of Emergency Medicine at Loyola University
Medical Center and was instrumental in establishing and fostering the EMSC program in Illinois.
When he passed away in 1998, these awards were set up in his honor to recognize those who carry on his commitment to childhood care. Individuals or organizations can be nominated for one of the following three award categories – Lifetime Achievement , Clinical Excellence and Community
Service . Nominations for the awards were received from throughout the state.
Robert Elhgammer, MD, FAAP began his service as a pediatrician in Danville in
1953. That same year he assisted in the formation of the Vermilion County
Mental Health Center on the 5 th
floor of Lake View Hospital; this center continues to provide mental health care for children, adolescents and families in the county today. In 1956, Dr. Elghammer spearheaded the Vermilion County polio drive as its director. Volunteering to inoculate all of the county’s children, Dr.
Elghammer administered polio vaccine to thousands of children through visits to schools around the county. The drive charged 25 cents per vaccination, which Dr.
Elghammer then donated to the two nursing schools in Danville. In 1971, Dr.
Elghammer established the Intensive Care Nursery at Danville’s Lake View

Hospital. He also designed the equipment and developed the procedures for the nursery including florescent lighting for infants with high bilirubin, catheterization procedures and laminar flow and hyperalimentation procedures for infants who required intensive IV nutrients.
Well aware of the educational and social needs of children as well as the medical,
Dr. Elghammer served on the founding Head Start board of Danville and
Vermilion County and continues to serve as the Vermilion County Head Start pediatric consultant. In 2005, Dr. Elghammer contributed funding to provide for further phonics training for Head Start students to improve their early pre-reading skills.
Dr. Elghammer has served as a member of the Vermilion County Task Force subcommittee on decreasing the dropout rate. He is currently working on a proposal for a formal study in collaboration with the Danville public schools to research the educational and social impacts of an organic diet on children.
Susan Fuchs, MD, FACEP, FAAP is a pediatric emergency medicine physician at
Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. She is also Associate Professor of
Pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and serves in the following roles: Associate Director of the Division of Pediatric Emergency
Medicine at Children’s Memorial Hospital; Pediatric Emergency Care Editorial
Board member; Prehospital Emergency Care Editorial Board member; consultant to the Department of Health and Human Services Food and Drug
Administration Pediatric Advisory Subcommittee member; Clinical Pediatric
Emergency Medicine Editorial Board member and has published numerous published articles relating to pediatric emergency care.
Dr. Fuchs is noted by her peers to be an excellent clinician and a caring and compassionate individual. She travels throughout the state to assist the Illinois

Department of Public Health in the conduction of hospital site surveys to assess pediatric preparedness. She uses these surveys as an opportunity to educate hospital personnel regarding the need to enhance their pediatric capabilities and keep current with new or evolving practices. She also serves on numerous local, state and national committees dedicated to EMS and Pediatric Emergency
Medicine. Dr. Fuchs chairs the Illinois EMSC Advisory Board and is also the
Chair of the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Interest Group of the Society of
Academic Emergency Medicine.
Dr. Fuchs has previously received the Ron W. Lee, M.D. –Excellence in Pediatric
Care Award for Lifetime Achievement, the EMSC Heroes Award for Innovation in Product/Program Development and the Program Excellence Award, Prevent
Child Abuse Illinois. Dr. Fuchs has also earned the President’s Call to Service
Award from the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation for dedicating at least 4,000 hours to serving others over the course of her life; as well as the President’s Volunteer Service Award for her dedication to volunteer service. The letters of support that were submitted along with her nomination indicate how well her work is recognized. She is a role model and is an individual who has devoted herself to caring for and advocating for children.
Colleen Bingham, MD, FAAP is pediatrician at St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital in
Effingham, Illinois. Her colleagues feel fortunate to have her as a fellow clinician and describe her as a dynamic leader with commitment, vision and tenacity. She is also very well known for being an advocate for maltreated children. The State’s Attorney for
Effingham County finds her to be exceedingly assistive as an expert witness in their prosecution of abuse cases. “Dr. Bingham saw a need in her community to help victims of sexual abuse and took it upon herself to fill that need. She has worked diligently, conducting physical exams and testifying, to advance prosecution efforts against those who have committed crimes against children,” said Illinois
Department of Public Health Director Dr. Eric E. Whitaker. “Dr. Bingham’s

dedication to the mentally and emotionally difficult task of working with child abuse cases is very deserving of the Clinical Excellence award.”
Until recently, Effingham did not have a physician specializing in conducting physical exams on victims of sexual abuse. To be properly examined, victims of sexual abuse had to travel more than an hour away. Dr. Bingham got the equipment and necessary training to be able to examine victims of sexual abuse in her office in Effingham. Area law enforcement says the prosecution of sexual abuse cases has been greatly enhanced by Dr. Bingham’s efforts to extend her expertise to this growing field.
Dr. Bingham serves as a member of the Child Advocacy Board, a multiple agency board that meets bimonthly to discuss cases that are being prosecuted and investigated. For approximately four years Dr. Bingham served as a member of the Children’s Medical Resource Network, an organization that specializes in providing medical evaluations for children who are reported victims of child sexual abuse, child physical abuse and/or neglect, and those who are at risk of abuse. Through the Network, Dr. Bingham has volunteered her time to become trained in evaluating child sexual abuse.
In addition, during the 2005-2006 school year, Dr. Bingham helped the Effingham
Unit #40 School District spearhead a committee of interested staff, parents and other physicians to look at the current placement of young children with communication disorders. Due to her medical expertise and the efforts of the
Effingham Unit #40 staff, those children now have a quiet classroom with fewer students that provides an environment that is more conducive to learning.
School Health Link, Inc is a school health clinic that began on August 1, 1995 in
Silvis, Illinois and was developed to assist those children whose health care needs were not being adequately met due to poverty, lack of health insurance and

neglect. Initially the population to be served was the United Township High
School students and their nine feeder schools. It soon became evident that there was a much broader need for this type of program since there were many children and families in other schools who had little or no access to healthcare services.
LINK quickly expanded to include all school-age (pre-school through high school graduation) children and adolescents in Rock Island County.
During LINKs second year of operation, 1000 students were served and this number has incrementally risen over the years to approximately 7,500 annually.
The program is a collaborative one with an interdisciplinary team that includes the
Rock Island County Health Department, area schools, social service agencies, dentists, local hospitals and medical providers.
LINK continues to assess its needs and increase its services as appropriate. For example, the number of students utilizing services kept growing, which prompted the conduction of needs assessments and public interest meetings. The information gathered led to the opening of a second LINK clinic in the city of
Rock Island on November 1, 2000. In addition, due to the increasing need for mental health services demonstrated by LINK patients, funding was received in
December 2006 from the Illinois Childrens Healthcare Foundation to provide counseling services to school age children and adolescents. Other sources for funding that support LINK is through the Illinois Department of Human Services,
United Way and local community foundations.
LINK has become a “safety net” for children and families in Rock Island County and has made a significant impact in this community. In a survey conducted last year, the Rock Island County school nurses noted that LINK has improved immunization rates, improved asthma care of their students and decreased absenteeism in each of their buildings.