Shriners Children’s Lexington celebrates 100 years of pediatric orthopedic care
LEXINGTON — While children still sleigh down the snow-covered hill in front of the former Shriners Children’s Hospital building on Richmond Road on snow days, the legacy of Shriners Children’s Lexington extends far beyond that cherished landmark. For the past 100 years, the organization has helped children overcome extraordinary challenges. Now in its new home for nearly a decade, the world-class pediatric orthopedic provider is creating even more life-changing stories in the century ahead.
As an example of the unique care that they provide, Shriners Children’s Lexington orthopedic surgeon Vince Prusick, MD, recalls a complex patient who was born with significant scoliosis, which is curvature of the spine. The standard course of treatment was to insert a magnetized steel rod next to the child’s spine and slowly bend the spine into a normal, vertical alignment. The complicating factor was that this child had numerous other unique medical conditions that required use of a flexible spine that would be limited by traditional rod constructs. Prusick consulted with surgeons at one of the other Shriners facilities and was able to employ vertebral body tethering, a newer technique that maintains flexibility and still controls the curve.
That’s just one of thousands of patient stories that have come from Shriners Children’s Lexington over the past 100 years.
Where do we begin? At the beginning, of course.
The Start of a National Mission for Children
The Shriners Children’s system was founded in September 1922, when physicians treated their first pediatric polio patient in Shreveport, Louisiana. At a time when children with orthopedic conditions had few treatment options, members of the Shriners International fraternal organization recognized the overwhelming needs created by the polio epidemic and committed to build hospitals dedicated entirely to children, to provide care regardless of a family’s financial resources.
That national mission quickly reached Kentucky. The Bluegrass State’s Shriners Hospital for Children location opened in Lexington on November 1, 1926, as a 20-bed wing connected to the children’s ward at Good Samaritan Hospital. The facility was funded by Oleika Shriners, the Lexington-based chapter of Shriners International, part of a network that today spans more than 200 chapters and thousands of clubs across the United States and the world.
The Lexington hospital was among the first Shriners hospitals opened in the United States, and from the very beginning, its mission was clear: specialized orthopedic care for children, provided regardless of a family’s ability to pay or insurance status. In those early years, the hospitals were funded entirely through a modest $2 annual assessment from each Shriner — a model rooted in shared responsibility and service.
It soon became evident that the original hospital could not meet the growing demand. In October 1951, Shriners Children’s purchased 27 acres on Richmond Road, formerly part of the Henry Clay Estate. A new freestanding 50-bed hospital opened in 1955, built at a total cost of $1.1 million, including land, construction, and furnishings. The facility included onsite nursing quarters, where nurses lived while caring for children who often remained hospitalized for months at a time.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, Shriners Hospitals for Children expanded its mission beyond treatment alone. The organization committed to education, research, and broader clinical advancement. During this era, Shriners Children’s hospitals became nationally known for delivering expert, compassionate care to patients and families — an identity that continues today.
Growth Soon Followed
As surgical volumes increased in the 1980s, the Lexington facility once again outgrew its space. In 1988, a new hospital was constructed in front of the 1955 building, which was later demolished. The updated facility spanned 180,000 square feet and included two operating rooms, expanded support services, and physician exam rooms — designed to accommodate up to 50 inpatients.
From 1988 through 2017, families from across Kentucky and the surrounding states of Tennessee, West Virginia, Indiana, and Ohio increasingly sought care in Lexington. The medical staff expanded to include multiple pediatric orthopedic surgeons, a pediatric hand specialist, pediatric anesthesia specialists, and consulting experts in rehabilitation, plastics, rheumatology, and sports medicine. During this period, care gradually shifted from long inpatient stays to an outpatient-focused model, reflecting national healthcare trends.
In 2011, Shriners Children’s looked to evolve without losing the mission, culture, or identity that set the care apart. For Lexington, that meant deepening its partnership with the University of Kentucky and planning a modern, outpatient medical center near Kentucky Children’s Hospital, which is now known as Golisano Children’s at UK.
That vision became reality in 2017, when Shriners Children’s Lexington relocated to the UK HealthCare campus and officially transitioned to an ambulatory care model. The new medical center includes a specialty outpatient clinic, rehabilitation center, and surgery center, while inpatient care is provided seamlessly across the street at Golisano Children’s at UK by Shriners Children’s physicians who hold dual privileges.
The 60,000-square-foot facility features advanced clinical upgrades — including Kentucky’s first EOS low-dose imaging system, expanded clinic space, and two state-of-the-art surgical suites designed with family convenience in mind. Within just three years of the move, active patient numbers grew from 11,000 to over 16,000.
Nationally Ranked
In partnership with Golisano Children’s at UK, Shriners Children’s Lexington has been consistently ranked among the top 50 in the country for pediatric orthopedic care by U.S. News and World Report, including in 2026. Although the two organizations are separate entities, they collaborate closely to deliver seamless, high-quality care. These rankings are among the most comprehensive evaluations of pediatric hospitals in the country, measuring outcomes, patient safety, clinical resources, and adherence to best practices.
Patient volumes, once carefully examined to determine if the new inpatient model was sustainable, now exceed capacity.
In 2025, Shriners Children’s Lexington:
- Served more than 12,000 children
- Had 50,487 patient visits
- Performed 854 surgeries
- Logged 40,923 occupational and physical therapy visits
- Conducted 20,378 radiology exams
- Provided 3,906 custom prosthetic and orthotic devices
- Served patients from 25 states
- Raised $5.4 million to help make all of this care possible
Seventy percent of the medical center’s operating budget is funded through philanthropy, allowing the organization to uphold the promise it made 100 years ago — to treat every child who needs care, regardless of a family’s ability to pay or insurance status.
Expanded Service Lines of Care
Today, Shriners Children’s Lexington provides a full spectrum of pediatric orthopedic care, treating everything from fractures and sports injuries to complex, lifelong conditions such as spine disorders, cerebral palsy, and limb differences. In addition to clinical care, the center serves as a hub for leading-edge research and pediatric medical education, all within a family-centered environment designed to reduce stress and support healing.
In 2026, Shriners Children’s Lexington marked its milestone 100th anniversary with a year-long centennial celebration — honoring the generations of physicians, nurses, therapists, staff, Shriners, and donors whose commitment has shaped a legacy of wraparound, family-centered care.
A new generation of pediatric orthopedic surgeons have taken up the work from previous Shriners Children’s physicians such as David Stevens, MD, Todd Milbrandt, MD, Henry Iwinski, MD, chief of staff for 13 years, longtime physicians Scott Riley, MD, and Janet Walker MD, who continue to practice there, and many others who have taken care of kids over the years.
Vishwas Talwalkar, MD, is currently the chief of staff at Shriners Children’s Lexington. He started his career at the Lexington facility and has been there nearly 30 years.
“What truly sets Shriners Children’s Lexington apart is our history and our culture of wraparound care for both rare and routine conditions,” Talwalkar says. “Over the last century, we have had amazing people who have worked every day and care deeply for our patients and families. Thanks to the ongoing generosity and commitment of the Shriners organization and millions of donors, we can continue to provide the highest level of complex care for patients regardless of their ability to pay. It’s medicine in its purest form.”
Meet Ryan Muchow, MD
A native of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Ryan Muchow, MD, has been a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Shriners Children’s Lexington since 2012. He says it is the first, best, and only job he’ll ever have.
After attending the University of Wisconsin for his undergraduate, medical school, and orthopedic surgery training, Muchow went to the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas for his pediatric orthopedic fellowship. The next stop after that was Shriners Children’s Lexington.
A basketball and tennis player in high school, Muchow credits his sports background with drawing his attention to pediatric orthopedic surgery. Even during his residency, he spent his free time coaching high school tennis and volunteering with a high school youth ministry.
“My personal life and my professional life kind of meet up here with pediatric orthopedic surgery,” says Muchow, who lives in Lexington with his wife and four children. “It is super cool how you can’t plan the best things in your life — we didn’t really know Lexington would be our forever home, but after a few years it becomes pretty clear that God’s got you here for a purpose and a reason, and we’re excited to keep living that mission out.”
Part of that mission has become Muchow’s expertise in the areas of adolescent hip disorders and scoliosis. Both of those conditions have exciting new advancements and surgical techniques that are beneficial for children. One of the newest, for children with scoliosis, is the vertebral body tethering surgery that Prusick used on his patient.
“That’s our newest and most promising advancement,” he says. “Traditionally, the main treatment for scoliosis has been to make the spine straight and fuse the spine to keep it from curving, which is still the gold-standard option. The most recent advances, though, are trying to maintain spinal motion while correcting the deformity. VBT is really cool because it uses a fancy rope, essentially, to tether the spine and allow the child’s growth to correct the scoliosis. We are excited about the future advancements that will have motion preservation as a key component of the deformity correction.”
Conditions such as these are difficult not only for the child, but also the parents and family as a whole. Muchow keeps that front of mind as he consults with the family, explains the treatments and procedures, and answers their questions.
“It’s always the best to focus on the patient, even if they’re the youngest age. They are so much fun — to get down on their level, play and laugh with them, it allows you to engender trust with the child and the parents. That sets the stage for conversations regarding what is best for their kiddo, and the family understands that is the primary goal.”
Muchow stresses that he is not alone in devoting his time and attention to the care of these patients and their families. It’s pervasive throughout Shriners Children’s Lexington.
“When we are working with the family, my nurse care manager is just as important with addressing and handling the needs of the family. Shriners is a magical place. From the person first greeting them when they check in, to the radiology tech, to the medical assistant rooming the patient in the hallway. Each of these people are so important to welcoming the families to this most special place to receive orthopedic care,” Muchow says. “Further, in our clinical workroom, we’ve specifically designed it so all the docs are in one room, making it very collegial and allowing us access to expert opinions when caring for challenging diagnoses so we can put our heads together and present a cohesive plan to the families. Everything about this physical space was designed to reflect the excellence in care and service that we aim to provide to the families.”
As part of their relationship and role as faculty with the University of Kentucky, Muchow and the rest of the physician team are educators and researchers as well as clinicians. He is a professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at UK and loves to educate orthopedic surgery residents and medical students. “There’s not a greater way to have impact in our field than to teach young orthopedic surgeons the art and science of orthopedics, and the professionalism to be an excellent servant leader in your space.”
Meet Vince Prusick, MD
Vince Prusick, MD, has been a pediatric orthopedic specialist at Shriners Children’s Lexington since 2018. He is also an assistant professor of pediatric orthopedic surgery and pediatrics at the University of Kentucky.
Prusick grew up in northern Michigan and earned his medical degree from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. He then completed his residency at the University of Kentucky followed by a fellowship at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. He officially joined the team at the medical center in 2018, but he also served as a resident at the medical center before that. Areas of special interest to Prusick include spinal deformity, hip dysplasia, and trauma.
His interest in medicine came naturally from his father, who recently retired after more than 30 years as a general orthopedic surgeon.
“My father never pushed me towards medicine. I tell people I didn’t really know there were other jobs. From a young age I knew that dad fixes bones, so that’s what I guess I’m going to do. Here I am 40 years later, and I wouldn’t change anything about it. I honestly never really considered anything else.”
While in medical school, Prusick watched a scoliosis surgery that led him to where he is today at Shriners Children’s Lexington. “I was fascinated by the surgery itself, the correction,” Prusick says. “We had the ability to impact a child’s life. That really just stuck with me from that moment.”
Prusick performs a variety of surgeries, including hip, spine, foot and ankle, and trauma. “You never know each day what’s going to come through the door. There’s a lot of variety in pediatrics, which kind of makes it exciting each day.”
One of the most common procedures he performs is spinal fusion surgery. It involves placing screws, which act as anchors, throughout the affected levels of the spine and then attaching two rods to correct the curve and provide support while the spine is fusing.
In the past, patients would require a four- or five-day stay in the hospital, but today that has been trimmed to just one or two days.
Additionally, the Shriners Children’s team use “growing instrumentation” for skeletally immature patients, a procedure that involves implanting magnetic rods.
“We place anchors at the top of the spine at a few levels and at the bottom of the spine at a few levels,” Prusick says. “Every three months, the child comes to the clinic, and we put a device on their back that spins a magnet, and it cranks a motor, which lengthens it about five millimeters every few months. This has greatly decreased the need for repeat surgeries, and we’re able to do it in the clinic setting as opposed to in the operating room.”
But surgical procedures are only a portion of the care that Prusick provides his patients and their families.
“I always try to be very friendly, especially to the child, to make them feel comfortable but then equally the family and the parents and get to know who’s there with the patient. It’s all about listening to your patients because, most of the time, they’ll tell you the answer to what’s wrong with them.”
Prusick continues, “What most people want is to know that they felt heard. You have to have buy-in from the family but equally from the child because we are talking with them, not about them. I think that’s key. You have to guide them into what you think is the best of options, but ultimately you want everyone to feel comfortable with whatever decision we make at the end of the day.”
As challenging as it can be at times, Prusick’s work at Shriners Children’s Lexington is a labor of love.
“If you can make things a little bit better, at the end of the day, you feel like you’ve done something good for the world. That’s probably the biggest thing. Sometimes you have super thankful families, and you have a moment of pride, but I don’t do it for the acknowledgements or anything like that. It’s more of a responsibility.”
Meet Dylan Kluck, MD
Much like his colleagues, fellow pediatric orthopedic surgeon Dylan Kluck, MD, was drawn to Shriners by the opportunity to help children in ways that may not be possible elsewhere.
“The mission of Shriners has always resonated with me,” says Kluck, who joined Shriners Children’s Lexington in 2022. “Being able to help the families that really need us is incredibly gratifying. Walking the halls at Shriners, you see people who have been here for 15 or 20 years or longer because they are all committed to the same goal, which is trying to make sure that we are doing the right thing for each patient.”
After growing up in Boulder, Colorado, Kluck graduated from UC Berkeley and then went to medical school at Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis. He completed an orthopedic surgery residency at UC San Diego and then did a pediatric fellowship at Scottish Rite for Children in Dallas.
“I enjoy working with kids because there is an incredible opportunity to impact them in a positive manner for the rest of their lives,” says Kluck, who also serves as a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at the University of Kentucky. “By addressing a significant lower extremity deformity or some of these bigger problems that we treat, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon can have a huge impact on a child’s quality of life. Even with something like a fracture, kids are motivated and want to get back to doing the things that they love to do. Being able to participate in that process is rewarding.”
Kluck’s patients are often children born with congenital deficiencies such as a missing, deformed, or shortened bone. The task is to try to figure out how to reconstruct the bone as the child gets older to make it function as normally as possible. In the past, a common treatment was the use of an external fixator, which is a brace that goes on the outside of the leg. That approach, however, has changed over the past decade.
“When possible, we try to do limb lengthening and reconstruction techniques with devices that are internal,” Kluck says. “I’ve definitely had an increase in the number of patients that I’m using internal motorized lengthening nails for. In general, these are devices that go inside of the bone and have a small motor to allow the inner portion of the nail to telescope out of the outer portion of the nail. The patient then uses an external device that controls the motor and elongates the nail, and that’s how the bone lengthens. That technology is one of the biggest innovations in pediatric orthopedics and it has totally changed the world of limb lengthening.”
Kluck sees approximately 60 patients per week, but most of them are nonsurgical patients. For example, patients with clubfoot typically are treated via other options such as casts. He estimates that he performs an average of four to six surgeries per week, and they are typically lengthy procedures.
It can be a grueling experience for surgeon, patient, and the family, but Kluck says it is all worth it to help people on one of the worst days of their lives.
“It’s our responsibility and our job to show up and be that calming presence and that person who can help that family in that moment,” Kluck says.
He shared the story of a girl who suffered a femur fracture caused by a benign tumor and the note that he received from her that he keeps on the corkboard by his desk. The note reads:
“My hero is Dr. Kluck. He’s special because he did surgery on my leg. He also kept my nerves calm by telling me I am brave. Dr. Kluck told me exactly what was going to happen. Lastly, he healed my leg so now I get to walk.”
“That’s why we all do this,” Kluck says. “I mean, she certainly didn’t have to do that, but she brought that to me, and, you know, I hang on to stuff like that because that’s why we do what we do.”
Meet Anne Marie Dumaine, MD
Northern Kentucky native Anne Marie Dumaine, MD, is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who joined Shriners Children’s Lexington in 2025. A graduate of Transylvania University in Lexington, she attended the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and completed a pediatric orthopedic fellowship at Texas Scottish Rite for Children in Dallas.
Having been briefly exposed to Shriners Children’s during her medical training, Dumaine hoped to one day work there. Despite her high expectations, she says that her experience at Shriners Children’s has been even better than expected.
“Shriners Children’s is just an amazing organization. Regardless of financial ability, we are able to provide care for patients. That was something that really resonated with me.”
At Shriners Children’s, Dumaine’s primary areas of focus are on neuromuscular disorders such as cerebral palsy as well as lower extremity conditions like clubfoot, hip dysplasia, and trauma.
“I really like taking care of that patient population because you can have a big impact,” Dumaine says. “Not only are you getting kids back to what they love to do, such as sports, but in this particular patient population, you’re helping them to maintain function. That’s a really awesome thing to be able to provide to kids.”
Dumaine’s neuromuscular patients come to Shriners Children’s either because they already have been diagnosed or because they have yet to be diagnosed, but are experiencing difficulties or delays.
“Maybe they’re not sitting up on time or they’re not pulling to stand,” Dumaine says. “That triggers a workup with ourselves, with neurology and the physical medicine doctors to figure out the cause. We continue to follow them throughout their childhood because we know their timeline for development looks different.”
In addition to Dumaine’s care, additional assistance provided by Shriners Children’s includes physical and occupational therapy, and the orthopedics department can make braces for the patients as needed.
“My goal and the reason I got into pediatric orthopedics is one, I love kids and, two, I want to get kids back to everything that they want to do,” Dumaine says. “As a mom, it’s really easy to put yourself in the family’s shoes and see exactly what they’re going through that day. I want to maximize their function. On those worst days, keeping those goals in mind is really helpful.”
Dumaine acknowledges that delivering bad news results in some difficult conversations with families, but she is also in awe of their resilience.
“You can’t completely remove yourself from the emotion,” she says. “But remembering why we do what we do, and what our guiding principles are, makes that a little bit easier. You go through the highs and the lows together. Making yourself available and allowing yourself to be a little vulnerable and a little emotional is all part of it. That relationship is a two-way street. I’m grateful to get to take care of them, but they teach me a lot, too.”
One thing that Dumaine has certainly learned is that Shriners Children’s is the place for her. Far more than a career, it is her passion.
“It’s really an amazing place to work. Everyone buys into the mission. We are all here for the same reason, which is providing excellent care to children. People come to work excited to work and excited to help take care of kids, which just makes it an awesome and really fun place to work. It has exceeded my expectations. I’ll never get a better job.”
In Conclusion
Pediatric orthopedic care is a responsibility that all the physicians, staff and caregivers at Shriners Children’s Lexington have been living up to for 100 years… and counting.
Children and their parents have found hope and healing at Shriners Children’s Lexington for the past century because it stands as a trusted name in Kentucky and beyond—delivering what families have found as “the most amazing care anywhere.”