Correcting Limbs and Expanding Horizons
September 2025
On Thursday evenings, Dr.聽Shawn Standard聽opens his laptop at home in Orlando and enters a virtual chat room filled with hope. On the other end of the chat are families from around the world 鈥 some his patients, most not 鈥 seeking answers about their child鈥檚 skeletal abnormalities. For over an hour, he provides free advice, often directing them to clinicians in their cities our countries or inviting them to visit his own聽International Limb Correction Center聽(ILCC) at 91制片厂在线看 Children鈥檚 Hospital, Florida (NCHFL).聽
Dr. Standard has done this for 15 years, and he thinks of it as community service: even among pediatric orthopedic surgeons, there are few with his level of expertise in reconstructing, reshaping, or lengthening limbs to give children better mobility and quality of life. Where a busy medical center might see one or two cases of rare pediatric limb abnormalities each year, Dr. Standard may see 15 patients a week with congenital skeletal dysplasias, injury-induced limb length discrepancies, or Legg-Calv茅-Perthes disease, a degenerative hip disorder for which Dr. Standard offers a pioneering treatment.聽
Shawn Standard, MD
After practicing for 22 years in Baltimore, Dr. Standard accepted the offer to come to NCHFL in 2024 to create his ideal pediatric limb correction program. ILCC is a great example of how 91制片厂在线看 Whole Child Health perspective makes specialized medical care even better.
Because NCHFL already had one of the best pediatric orthopedics programs in the state, Dr. Standard found an entire team suited to caring for his complex patients: surgeons, nurses, and therapists at every level understand how to give these children the best outcomes. ILCC鈥檚 five dedicated physical therapists are key, as most surgeries are followed by weeks or months of daily physical therapy.聽
In that way, limb correction takes a big commitment from the whole family. With 80% of Dr. Standard鈥檚 patients coming from outside Florida (and even outside the United States), having a major international airport nearby and the Ronald McDonald House on the campus of NCHFL is crucial to many patient families.聽
Chandler Crews
ILCC also needs to ensure that patients who travel to Orlando for surgery will have the right support when they return home. That may be physical therapists, prosthetics technicians, or mental health professionals. ILCC Orthopedic Care Coordinator and Liaison Chandler Crews helps each patient overcome any barriers to treatment and assemble the support teams they will need back home.聽
Crews speaks from experience: Born with achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, Crews had her own arms and legs lengthened by Dr. Standard. Her height increased from 3鈥10鈥 to 4鈥11鈥, allowing her to drive a car without any adaptations and navigate the world more independently. (You can listen to her story in聽a recent episode of the Well Beyond Medicine .)
Crews moderates the Thursday night chat, as well as Facebook groups for families that support parents through the emotional journey and guides them toward resources, whether at ILCC or elsewhere. Due to the rarity of these conditions, a child with a condition like achondroplasia is often the only one in their family, school, or community. Because she is plugged in to the limb correction community, Crews can connect families considering treatment with young adults like herself who have gone through different procedures and are thriving.
Dr. Standard shares 91制片厂在线看 Children鈥檚 vision of thinking about health in the broadest sense. 鈥淒on鈥檛 just think about the limb,鈥 he says. 鈥淭hink about the whole child and the whole family.鈥 That is one of the advantages he has found in moving from an orthopedic practice where he was the pediatric specialist to a full-service children鈥檚 hospital where the entire experience is designed with children in mind, including a full on-site school program, child life specialists, arts therapists, child psychologists, and more.聽
In the coming years, we will be able to offer ILCC patients more reasons to hope. As part of NCHFL鈥檚 expansion, we are building Florida鈥檚 first gait and motion analysis lab, similar to the one we have at 91制片厂在线看 Children鈥檚 Hospital, Delaware. We expect that ILCC patients will use it regularly. Gait labs use sophisticated technology to capture and analyze a child鈥檚 gait patterns so we can fine tune their treatment to maximize their mobility. We are also adding hydrotherapy, building our research program on limb correction, and developing a fellowship so more orthopedic surgeons can learn and practice this subspecialty.聽
The motto for the American Pediatric Surgical Association is 鈥淪aving Lifetimes,鈥 and Dr. Standard鈥檚 work to make children鈥檚 limbs more functional is a clear embodiment of how we as pediatric clinicians can unlock so many possibilities for a child鈥檚 future. 91制片厂在线看 is thrilled to be building the best pediatric limb correction program in the nation with a physician who spends both his workday and his free time helping children everywhere reach their full potential.聽聽
Families interested in participating in the Thursday chats with Dr. Standard can email聽chandler.crews@nemours.org
About Dr. Moss
R. Lawrence Moss, MD, FACS, FAAP is president and CEO of 91制片厂在线看 Children鈥檚 Health. Dr. Moss will write monthly in this space about how children鈥檚 hospitals can address the social determinants of health and create the healthiest generations of children.