Critical Care, PICU, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Phoenix, Arizona
Pediatric Intensive Care
With a total of 40 beds staffed by 12 pediatric intensivists and nearly 200 nursing and ancillary staff, the Sybil B. Harrington Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Phoenix Children's Hospital is not just the largest pediatric critical care unit in the Southwest but also one of the largest in the country. It is also uniquely prepared to serve the state's most critically-ill or injured children.
Eight of the intensivists and at least 28 nurses within the Critical Care department have worked for Phoenix Children's for at least 10 years. Support staff, consultants, nutritionists, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, child life specialists, and resident physicians in training round out the multidisciplinary team, and each one of them offers a different kind of expertise in pediatric critical care. It is a team approach that includes the family and leads to better physical and emotional outcomes.
In addition to offering the best medical care professionals, Phoenix Children's Critical Care unit is the only of its kind within a free standing children's hospital - offering all critical care services, including neuro-resuscitation, trauma, cardiac care, endocrine, and hematology/oncology. Phoenix Children's is the only hospital doing pediatric renal transplants in the state; the only center doing bone marrow transplants in the Valley; and one of the hospitals nationwide performing the ECMO procedure (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), allowing a child's heart and lungs to rest while equipment "breathes" and pumps blood for the patient.
The new PICU features all-new construction designed for family use along with the latest technology.
In addition to the services provided in the unit, Phoenix Children's understands its responsibility to make its expertise available to others in the community who may play a role in providing care to critically-ill or injured children. Our Pediatric Advanced Life Support program trains paramedics, flight personnel and emergency room staff all across the State on proper intervention, stabilization and transport of children.
For beginning medical practitioners, Phoenix Children's offers a residency program a PICU rotation for physicians and provides and extensive 15-week orientation program to newly graduated nurses.
Physician and Clinical Team
Heidi Dalton, MD - Division Chief and Section Chief
Robert Graham, MD - Medical Director
Paul Bakerman, MD
David Beyda, MD
Teik-Ee Cheah, MD
Paul H. Liu, MD
Robert B. Rosenberg, MD, PhD
Paul Tafoya, MD
Patricia Teaford, MD
Kitman Wai, MD
Elizabeth Zorn, MD
Nursing Staff
Lauren Thorson, RN, BSN - Clinical Supervisor, PICU
Nicole Dunn, RN
Aimee Franken, RN, BSN, MSN, CPAP-AC
Susan N. Romero, RN, MS, CPNP AC/PC
Cassie Valasek, CPNP
Research Highlights - Critical Care
In the past two years, members of the Critical Care division faculty at Phoenix Children’s Hospital have published twenty-three articles and made twenty-five presentations. They also are involved in and enthusiastically encourage fellow participation in the research activities listed below.
- Dr. Heidi Dalton and Dr. Murray Pollack received PCH’s first National Institutes of Health grant for “Predicting Morbidity from Pediatric Critical Care” as part of the Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network.
- Dr. Dalton is also working on the following active studies: Therapeutic Hypothermia After Pediatric Cardiac Arrest (the THAPCA Trials), Critical Asthma Mortality and Morbidity Planning Study, The CAMMP Study, Pilot Study of a Framework for Physician-Parent Follow- up Meetings (Framework Pilot).
- Dr. Patricia Teaford will complete in December of 2011 a Fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. She is working with Dr. Grace Caputo, Director of Graduate Medical Education, to develop a program for faculty development and resident education.
- Dr. David Tellez recently completed a placebo-controlled trial to assess the safety and efficacy of lucinactant in acute hypoxemic respiratory failure in children up to two years of age. He is also involved in creating a Novel Influenza A (H1N1) Surveillance Registry and involved in a Pediatric Intensive Care Influenza Study for Immune Response in life- threatening influenza for The Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators (“PALISI”). Dr. Tellez also serves as the Critical Care representative for PALISI.
- Dr. Sandra Buttram recently completed a project entitled Patient Plasma Response and Outcome in Thrombocytopenia Associated Multiple Organ Failure in Children as well a project (along with Dr. Adelson in Neurosurgery) entitled the “Cool Kids” Hypothermia Study. She is currently working on a project entitled Pediatric Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest and the Use of Therapeutic Hypothermia.
- Dr. Paul Bakerman, in conjunction with pharmacist Vanessa Holton, is working on a study of Dexmedetomidine Use in a Pediatric Critical Care Unit. Dr. Bakerman is also involved in a project looking at the severity of illness and outcome for Bone Marrow Transplant patients in a Pediatric Critical Care Unit.
- Dr. Sharod Menon received a 2009 Leadership Circle Award for Bedside Echocardiography in the Intensive Care Unit.
- Dr. Elizabeth Zorn received a 2009 Leadership Circle Award for Electromagnetic Tube Placement Device for the Critical Care Division.
- In addition to creating a Global Health Fellowship for the institution, Dr. David Beyda is involved in a Neurology ICU Research Registry.
Contact
Jill Haydusko, PICU Manager
(602) 933-1784
