Critical Care Medicine
Research and innovation
Research in the field of critical care medicine is one of Children's major priorities. Currently, five faculty are funded by the National Institutes of Health, as well as several other faculty funded with foundation grant support.
Jeffrey Burns, MD, MPH
Dr. Burns serves as Chief of the Division of Critical Care Medicine, as well as the Program Director for the Fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care. He has been awarded the highest teaching award by the Department of Medicine and Anesthesia. His research interest focuses on ethical issues in critical care medicine.
Monica Kleinman, MD
Dr. Kleinman is on the clinician-teacher promotional tract. To this end, she is heavily involved in educational activities and curriculum development. Dr. Kleinman co-directs the mock code section of the curriculum for critical care fellows and residents. Dr. Kleinman is the chair of the hospital?s CPR Committee, and co-authored the Code Team Training Manual for the institution. She serves as the medical director for the Pediatric Advanced Life Support and Basic Life Support training centers at the hospital, with oversight responsibility for the active PALS and BLS programs.
John Arnold, MD
Dr. Arnold serves as the Medical Director of the Department of Respiratory Care, Medical Director of the ECMO Program and Medical Director of Biomedical Engineering. His research interests lie in the area of novel modes of respiratory support.
David Casavant, MD
Dr. Casavant is physician within the CAPE program.
During fellowship, Dr. Casavant focused his research on novel technology and the genome in the ICU. He analyzed the DNA of patients with congenital diaphragmatic hernia using the microarray-based technology comparative genomic hybridization. Most recently his interests have turned to teaching focusing on training residents in emergency and code situations. He is presently developing a Mock Code curriculum at Boston Medical Center that will parallel and extend the program at Boston Children's Hospital. This program will eventually include simulator training for residents as the simulator program at Boston Medical Center develops.
Amy Durall, MD
Dr. Durall's research interests involve palliative care and end-of-life issues in children. She completed a research project to determine the number of potential kidney donation after cardiac death donors in the Medical/Surgical Intensive Care Unit (MSICU) & the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) at CHB over a 3 year period.
Dr. Durallparticipated in another donation after cardiac death (DCD) research project involving focus groups to elicit staff perspectives about DCD in our own institution. In addition to her interest in DCD, Dr. Durallis currently researching clinician and parental attitudes regarding advanced care planning, resuscitation status and the Do Not Resuscitate order.
- Amy L. Durall, Peter C. Laussen, and Adrienne G. Randolph. Potential for Donation After Cardiac Death in a Children's Hospital. Pediatrics, Jan 2007; 119: e219 - e224.
Robert Graham, MD
Dr. Graham is an associate in the Division of Critical Care Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital and is the Director of Resident and Medical Student Education for the Division. Through research, clinical interventions, and teaching, he has extended critical care services beyond the confines of the intensive care unit to optimize outcomes, quality of care, and resource utilization for children with chronic technology dependence and their families. At Children?s Hospital, he developed a novel clinical program, the Critical Care, Anesthesia, and Perioperative Extension (CAPE) and Home Ventilation Program, which provides home-visits, care coordination, and consultation for children with chronic respiratory insufficiency and other complex special heath care needs.
Daniel Kohane, MD, PhD
Dr. Kohane's research focuses on a wide range of medical problems including pain, peritoneal and other adhesions, vaccine vehicles, intracranial drug delivery , patient-controlled drug delivery systems, antifungal surfaces, intracellular delivery of enzymes/inborn errors of metabolism, drug delivery to the eye and ear, and others. He has employed microparticles, nanoparticles, hydrogels, combination systems and others.
Michael McManus, MD
Dr. McManus is Chief of Pediatrics at South Shore Hospital and assists in coordinating Children's efforts to establish a state-wide pediatric network. He is currently engaged in health policy research and is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council.
Nilesh Mehta, MD
Dr. Mehta is trained in the performance of indirect calorimetry and is investigating caloric intake and energy balance in critically ill children. He is the PI on a project aimed at characterizing the metabolic state of post-operative infants in the cardiac ICU after cardiopulmonary bypass. Dr. Mehta has written 2 chapters on critical care nutrition in leading ICU and Nutrition textbooks. He regularly lectures at the Introduction to Nutrition annual seminar at the Ender's Auditorium, Boston since 2006.
Dr. Mehta's research interest is focused on the metabolic and nutritional aspects of critically ill children. Under the mentorship of Dr. Christopher Duggan (Chief, Clinical Nutrition Services and Assoc. Prof. in Gastroenterology/Nutrition at Children's Hospital) he is part of the multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Intestinal Rehabilitation (CAIR) and is involved in the management of children with short bowel syndrome (SBS) at Boston Children's Hospital. He the PI for a multidisciplinary, scientific clinical study examining body composition, energy expenditure and intestinal adaptation in children with SBS. He has received funding from the Fred. Lovejoy Research Fund and the project is supported by the GCRC.
Robert Pascucci, MD
Dr. Pascucci's research interests lie in the area of resuscitation, stabilization, and transport of the critically ill patient, and in simulation training of staff in resuscitation and in communication skills.
Gregory Priebe, MD
Dr. Priebe is principal investigator at the Channing Laboratory of an NIH-funded basic research laboratory studying the pathogenesis and immunology of lung infections due to the Gram-negative bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Methods used in Dr. Priebe's lab span multiple fields, including microbiology, molecular biology, cellular and molecular immunology, and animal models of infection.
Adrienne Randolph, MD, MSc
Dr. Randolph serves as Chair of the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigator's Network that is comprised of 50 pediatric ICUs across the US and Canada. She is also the Director of the RSV and Asthma Clinical Research Center at Children's Hospital, Boston. Her research interests include genetic epidemiology, clinical trials, and treatment strategies for managing acute respiratory failure in children.
Gerhard Wolf, MD
Dr. Wolf serves as the pediatric medical director of Boston Med Flight. Dr. Wolf's research focuses on novel modes of ventilation in pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome. He is currently working on the clinical application of ventilator strategies to improve recruitment and oxygenation as well as on basic research in a large animal model using liquid ventilation.
Dr. Wolf has conducted a clinical trial using a bedside imaging technique called Electrical Impedance Tomography on pediatric ICU patients with ARDS ventilated with High Frequency Ventilation as well as with conventional ventilation. Dr. Wolf and his colleagues were able to quantify regional derecruitment and regional lung ventilation in the most critically ill pediatric ICU patients. The promise of monitoring techniques such as EIT is that they will guide lung protective ventilation strategies and allow the clinician to optimize lung recruitment, maintain an open lung, and limit overdistension.
Robert Truog, MD
Dr. Robert Truog is the Director of Clinical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, as well as, a Professor of Anaesthesia, Pediatrics, and Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School. His academic work has focused on the ethical issues that arise in anesthesia and critical care, and he recently authored national guidelines for providing end-of-life care in the ICU.
Peter Weinstock, MD, PhD
Dr. Weinstock serves as Director of Children's on-site pediatric Simulator Program. His research interests focus on optimizing medical education via high fidelity patient simulation with a focus on quality improvement and patient safety.
Sally Vitali, MD
Dr. Vitali has been a Research Associate in Anesthesia at Boston Children's Hospital and has continued her research examining the effects of hypoxia on the endothelium and the pathophysiology and molecular biology of hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension.
Meredith van der Velden, MD
Dr. van der Velden is the Associate Program Director for the Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship and the Associate Medical Director of the Medical-Surgical Intensive Care Unit.
Susan Hamilton
Susan Hamilton is the Clinical Nurse Specialist for the MSICU. She provides education and support for a nursing staff of over 100 nurses. Her research interests are in the area of nursing clinical care and outcomes.
Susan Hamilton has completed a randomized controlled clinical trial comparing two eye care therapies on the incidence of corneal abrasions in critically ill pediatric patients. Her current projects include monitoring techniques for intra-abdominal hypertension and nutrition in the ICU.
