Wendell

‘None of us are too small to be part of this effort.’

For decades, security officer Wendell Muhammad has been a familiar face at Children’s Health, where he’s made a career dedicated to keeping patients, families and team members safe.  

He was the guy you’d often see posted in the main lobby at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, smiling and waving to families and team members when they entered the hospital. 

Sometimes you’d find him patrolling a hallway or circling the nooks and crannies of parking garages.  

And for the last couple years, he’s been stationed across from the Dallas campus at a nondescript office building that houses many behind-the-scenes corporate jobs for the hospital system such as Information Services, Marketing and Communications and the Foundation.   

“I’ve had the chance to observe a different side of the Children’s Health mission – the business side,” Wendell said. “It’s taught me that this doesn’t work without people. People caring for patients, and people there to ensure the clinical staff has the resources they need.”  

And during his patrols, he’s also caught a peek at a mock-up of the new Dallas pediatric campus, noting how much the hospital system has grown since he joined as a rookie officer.  

When Wendell came to Children’s Health in the late 1980s, it was a smaller community hospital. Since then, he’s watched it grow into a regional hospital, then a national hospital and now an international hospital that treats patients from around the world.   

“One of the reasons I stayed for so long is because this place kept growing, and I wanted to be a part of that,” Wendell said. “I’ve always wanted to be a part of something bigger than who I am.”   

And as Children’s Health grew, there was more area to patrol and more people to keep safe. Over the years, security became more than just a job for Wendell.   

“When I got trained years ago, the officer who trained me, after it was over, he said that he had given me what I needed to become a good security officer, but he told me something was missing,” Wendell said. “He told me he couldn’t make me care, so I learned to allow myself to open up and think of this as more than just a job.”   

That compassion is what propelled Wendell to race to meet a CareFlite and escort a patient family into the hospital. That motivation gave him the empathy to calm a psychiatry patient who wanted to find his mother.   

“Everybody who works at Children’s Health has compassion. You can’t do this job without it,” Wendell said. “But if you’re on the business side, you have to take the time to connect the dots to understand how your role impacts patient care because it all makes a difference.”  

Wendell said he is a “fan” of Children’s Health like how others cheer for sports teams, encouraging fellow team members to sign up for regular payroll deduction to support the hospital system’s mission.  

Support from team members like Wendell allows Children’s Health to expand facilities to treat more kids closer to home through the recently opened new tower at Children’s Medical Center Plano and the new Dallas pediatric campus underway in collaboration with UT Southwestern Medical Center.  

Generous contributions from team members also pioneer research and innovative breakthroughs and allow Children’s Health to support areas of highest need and impact through unrestricted giving. 

“It brightens my day to know that no matter what is happening in the world, you can be part of something good,” Wendell said. “None of us are too small to be part of this effort.”