Children’s community loses a familiar face

Katie Lynch, longtime Children’s patient, former employee in the Center for Families and a great inspiration to the hospital community, died Oct. 24 from complications following surgery. She was 27.

Lynch, who was 28 inches tall and could often be heard buzzing through the halls in her wheelchair, was one of Children’s most recognizable faces. She suffered a rare form of dwarfism and tissue disease that required her to undergo many surgeries at Children’s over the course of her life, and her personal experience motivated her to become a tireless advocate for patients, families and the disabled.

Despite the huge obstacles posed both by her small size and the painful complications of her condition, Lynch recently achieved several personal goals. She attended Regis College and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English. She became a Children’s employee to continue the patient advocacy work she performed on the hospital’s Family Advisory Committee. At the 2001 Boston Marathon, she completed her own marathon by walking 26.2 feet while friends, strangers and television cameras looked on. And she recently celebrated her independence, moving into an apartment of her own.

“Katie was so proud to be employed at Children’s hospital,” says Maura O’Connell, social worker in the Center for Families. “Many of us take our jobs here for granted, but for Katie having a job meant that anything was attainable.”

“She wasn’t here to make her own experience better,” says Meg Comeau, coordinator of Family Initiatives. “She was here to work for all patients and families.” Lynch was pivotal to a 2000 campaign to provide better disabled access to hospital rest rooms, which resulted in changes to the way new hospital rest rooms will be designed. “Many of us had a theoretical knowledge of disability issues, but she helped us truly understand the challenges daily tasks can pose,” says Comeau.

Fittingly, Lynch’s favorite expression was parva sed poten, Latin for “small but powerful.”—CM

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