Section of Critical Care Medicine

Welcome to the Section of Critical Care Medicine.  Thank you for visiting out website today. The section has a rich history since the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit first opened at Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) in 1981.

We are Arkansas’ premier academic pediatric critical care program, providing comprehensive and equitable services for children with all forms of childhood traumatic injury and critical illness across the continuum of care. We strive to deliver the best clinical outcomes for our patients and families, provide top-notch educational experiences for our multidisciplinary trainees, and to innovatively advance care through pioneering research activity.

We pride ourselves on equitable, effective, and safe healthcare delivery for every child that we serve at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. We are a section that continuously seeks opportunities to improve medical and psychological care quality.

The section actively engages the most promising and influential research studies in the world that span from the laboratory to the bedside, including implementation science. Providing resources, time and connections to bring promising cutting-edge research to our children as quickly as possible is our major focus.

I’m a native of Detroit, Michigan, with prior experience in several successful and reputable academic institutions. Through the generous support of the Arkansas community, I have been given the privilege to develop and guide the next generation of pediatricians, advanced nurse practitioners, pediatric critical care physicians, and pediatric critical care surgeons. Pediatric critical care graduates serve and treat children throughout the world. The Arkansas community has a long history of support and admiration for pediatricians, specifically for Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

Clinical Care

Arkansas Children’s Hospital is one of the largest pediatric medical centers in the United States. Arkansas Children’s Hospital is part of the Arkansas Children’s system, which includes Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Arkansas Children’s Northwest, and the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute. Furthermore, ACH has partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service to support the Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center, a national Human Nutrition Research Center located in Little Rock. The Little Rock pediatric campus spans 36 city blocks and is anchored by a 336-bed freestanding children’s hospital.

We provide all critical care services on the Little Rock campus with support to our referral base through our busy Angel One transport team which has been continually accredited by the Commission on Air Medical Transport Services (CAMTS). Our pediatric intensive care faculty provides medical control for pediatric transports for the transport team. Our 26-bed Donald W. Reynold Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) provides the highest level of pediatric critical care services and admits approximately 1500 patients annually. The PICU cares for a broad range of medical and surgical pediatric patients. ACH is the state’s only Level I trauma program for children and the state’s only certified burn center. The unit has provided a full range of support modalities, including ECMO services, which has had Gold status through the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) for over 30 years. The PICU also has a dedicated pediatric neurocritical care team (PNCC)[hyperlink]. An adjacent intermediate care unit provides overflow space in times of very high census. Cardiac critical care is provided in a separate 30-bed combined critical care and step-down unit. The group also operates the ACH Sedation Team, which provides sedation to children outside the operating room for painful procedures and selected diagnostic tests. We are designated by the Society for Pediatric Sedation as one of 11 Centers of Excellence in Pediatric Sedation.

Research

Clinical research is rapidly expanding with observational studies, interventional trials and implementation science from early career investigators to experienced researchers with full time research coordinators and growing extramural funding in the section. The PICU faculty are active participants in the Pediatric Acute Lung Disease and Sepsis Investigators, including the National Emergency Airway Registry for Children (NEAR4KIDS), Critical Care Nutrition (NutriNet), BloodNet, Bronchiolitis: Advancing Care and Outcomes (BACON),  and the PediECMO networks. The PICU is also an ancillary site for the National Institute of Health’s Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network and actively participates in clinical trials sponsored by the Centers of Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. The team is actively engaged in novel investigations in long Covid syndrome in children, immunomodulation in sepsis and multiorgan dysfunction, and ventilation strategies in severe respiratory failure. Faculty are also participating in NIH-funded multi-center clinical studies in anticoagulation and ECMO outcomes.

Education

Education has been a longtime priority for the section in building knowledge and developing effective teachers. Faculty within the section have been recognized within the department and college of medicine with education accolades and awards. Residents and advanced practice nurses are an integral part of the PICU team and residents from pediatrics, medicine-pediatrics, pediatric neurology, and emergency medicine rotate throughout the PICU. The pediatric critical care fellowship program has trained intensivists since 1990 and has graduates practicing throughout the US and Canada. Areas of education focus include high-fidelity simulation, improving resident education, wellness/work-life balance and resuscitation education.

Service and Leadership

Our faculty are excellent clinicians, investigators, and educators and serve as leaders in the Department of Pediatrics and Arkansas Children’s Hospital. They have a long history of leadership at the national level in professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Society of Critical Care Medicine, Society of Pediatric Sedation, Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators Network and American Heart Association.

But most importantly, they are kind, caring individuals who are passionate about delivering state-of-the-art care for children. We strive for those values to come through while training the next generation of healthcare professionals and searching for better ways to deliver that care. I am very proud of this highly dedicated group of individuals from diverse backgrounds. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our team.

Sincerely,