Because of the efforts of a tiny white-haired physician with a heart bigger than she is tall, children across the country who could have died in car crashes, or faced life altering injuries due to falls, burns, and many other incidents, are walking, talking and leading happy lives.

Twelve years ago Dr. Barlow founded the Injury Free Coalition for Kids. In addition to working as the Director of Surgery of Harlem Hospital Center in New York City, she serves as the Coalition’s executive director. The program is an expansion of her highly successful Harlem Program and it is bringing into focus her vision to empower communities and parents across the country to help children to be injury free.

In New York City she worked with the Department of Health to make sure there were window guards on apartment windows that protect children from falling out of the windows, which results in injuries and deaths. She realized that most injuries can be prevented. Her scope expanded from saving children’s lives through emergency surgery, to keeping them alive by empowering the people around them with the ability to prevent injuries.

The Coalition has helped her to transfer her fire to others. Under Dr. Barlow’s direction,and a tiny staff located in a small office at Columbia University, physicians located in children’s trauma centers, who see the most traumatic injuries, have formed 44 Injury Free Coalition for Kids sites in 40 cities and they have become resources for experts, community leaders, health care professionals, parents and government officials interested in saving children’s lives.

Community built playgrounds became a unique tool in her injury prevention efforts. These playgrounds became a safe place for children to play, a standing reminder of the need for injury prevention and a lasting commitment to the community. And she helped build them right beside parents, community leaders, and business representatives, teaching injury prevention.

Epidemiologists have shown her Injury Prevention Program has helped to drop the injury rates at Harlem Hospital by 60 percent, and at close to the same rates at the other sites. And economists have proven that for every dollar spent on the
program, four dollars were saved in health care costs.

Today, Dr. “B”, as she is affectionately called by her colleagues, has expanded her work to address childhood obesity and teen driving in selected Injury Free sites. As impressive, her work has supported a new field of medicine called “Injury Prevention” in leading medical schools. Additionally, excitement about the decrease in the injury rates among children has led other physicians to begin working toward preventing injuries in
seniors.

Dr. B is a woman of deep and abiding faith. She took an enormous risk by putting her credentials on the line when no one else thought injury prevention in kids was important. In 2010, Dr. B will retire from Harlem Hospital at age 72 as the Director of Surgery, and dedicate herself full time to helping families and communities keep their most important resource thriving: SAFE PLACES & SPACES FOR KIDS.