Critical Care Medicine

 

Aerial view of Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center

On behalf of our Division, I would like to welcome you to the website for the Division of Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics, which is part of The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. Our Division is dedicated to promoting excellence in the care of children with life-threatening, complex medical illnesses and critical care needs following surgery.

The mission of the Division of Critical Care Medicine is to provide:

  • Exceptional patient- and family-focused, state-of-the-art clinical care of the highest quality to children with life-threatening, complex medical illnesses and with intensive, post-operative critical care requirements.
  • Outstanding educational opportunities in pediatric critical care medicine for our faculty, subspecialty fellows, residents, and medical students.
  • A stimulating academic environment that promotes excellence in basic science, translational, and clinical research and in other scholarly activities for our faculty and subspecialty fellows.

For clinical care, the Division staffs a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital that is located in the Texas Medical Center, which is the largest medical center in the world and has earned the three-star rating, the highest possible distinction, from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). It is one of only six organizations in the world to receive the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization’s Award for Excellence in Life Support since 2006.

Our pediatric critical care medicine physicians provide twenty-four hour, in-house coverage in a multi-disciplinary, twenty two bed PICU with comprehensive services for a wide variety of critically ill medical and surgical patients with acute, life-threatening diseases and injuries. Medical and surgical subspecialists from all disciplines are immediately available in the PICU. Areas of subspecialty expertise include, but are not limited to, cardiovascular surgery, congenital heart disease, hematology, multi-organ system dysfunction, neurosurgery, oncology, respiratory failure, sepsis, solid organ transplantation, and trauma. Furthermore, the PICU has available advanced treatment modalities such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for neonatal and pediatric respiratory and cardiac failure, high frequency oscillatory ventilation, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, inhaled nitric oxide gas therapy, and non-invasive ventilation.

Our faculty is considered a community educational and clinical care resource, participating in local educational activities, having academic representation at the national level, and directing the transport of critically ill children. Our Division has an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited subspecialty training program in pediatric critical care medicine. This three-year program provides subspecialty training for pediatricians seeking certification in pediatric critical care medicine. Our faculty also actively participates in the education of pediatric residents and medical students in the PICU.

Our faculty also conducts productive basic science, translational, and clinical research. Areas of interest of our faculty include cardiopulmonary resuscitation, therapeutic hypothermia, traumatic brain injury, and asthma. Our faculty has presented their research at national and international scientific conferences.

If you would like to learn more about our Division, explore our website further. If you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.