Fundamentals of Pediatric Critical Care

Fellow's Tutorial Sessions

Goals:  To build a solid foundation for the clinical practice of critical care that compliments the fellows' experiential learning in the PICU and to nurture the growth of fellows as future academic clinicians, investigators and educators.  The didactic curriculum is broken into two broad topic areas as outlined below and is complimented by a monthly exercise in evidence-based decision making.  This session is designed to explore an approach for making decisions in the face of clinical and evidentiary uncertainty, scenarios which are commonly encountered in the PICU.

Fundamentals (Physiology & Pathology) of Critical Care Curriculum:  This curriculum is intended to cover the fundamental physiologic principals relevant to critical care with particular attention to the specifics of organ system function & failure, supportive care and replacement therapies.

Text:  Fuhrman & Zimmerman, Pediatric Critical Care, 3rd edition

Cardiac Critical Care Curriculum:  This curriculum is designed to complement the clinical experience in the ICU by providing a practical review of lesion specific post-operative cardiac critical care, supplemented when appropriate with more detailed physiology and pathophysiology.

Text:  Chang, Hanley, Wernofsky & Wessel:  Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care and Nichols, Cameron:  Critical Heart Disease in Infants and Children, 2nd Ed.

Cycle 1 General Principles

  • Session 1: Resuscitation 
  • Session 2: Respiratory Physiology
  • Session 3: Airway Management 
  • Session 4: Cardiac Surgery Basics 
  • Session 5: Hands-On ECMO 
  • Session 6: Anesthesia
  • Session 7: Blood component therapy
  • Session 8: Nutritional support
  • Session 9: Recovery from Anesthesia
  • Session 10: Palliative Care
  • Session 11: SIRS & MOFS
  • Session 12: Multiple Trauma & Burns

Cycle 2 Organ System Failure

  • Session 13: Respiratory Failure- low compliance “ARDS”
  • Session 14: Respiratory Failure- high resistance “asthma/bronchiolitis” 
  • Session 15: Ingestions & Toxindromes
  • Session 16: Hematologic Disorders 
  • Session 17: Endocrine Failure
  • Session 18: Overwhelming Infectious Syndromes (TSS, GAS, RMSF, GNR sepsis)
  • Session 19: Transplantation & Transplantation Immunology
  • Session 20: Inborn errors of Metabolism
  • Session 21: Renal Failure
  • Session 22: Intracranial Hypertension & CNS Trauma
  • Session 23: Seizures / Coma / Neurointensive Care 
  • Session 24: Fulminant Hepatic Failure