Intensive Care and Acute Care Experiences
The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is covered by attending staff and eight senior residents. Residents care for critically ill patients with medical and surgical issues. The opportunities for independence and procedures are plentiful:
- Residents take Transport Call as part of their PICU rotation and have the opportunity to go to neighboring communities by ambulance to pick up sick patients. Residents also have the opportunity to travel across the United States in a Lear jet to transport children ready for transplant.
- Third year residents on the PICU rotation will have the opportunity for a one-week anesthesia "mini-rotation." This offers residents an additional procedural experience and affords them focused training in airway management.
Residents have a variety of neonatal intensive care experiences. From the delivery experiences at the Level III NICUs at University and Good Samaritan hospitals to the Level IV NICU at Cincinnati Children's, our neonatal training is extensive. You will graduate with confidence in your neonatal resuscitation skills – whether the patient is a term newborn, a 24-week premature infant or a set of triplets.
Our residents enjoy five months of training in our Emergency Department. You will treat everything from ear infections to lacerations and broken bones, and you will be able to perform a variety of procedures. As a senior resident you'll be responsible for the acute care area (very ill and complex ED patients) and hold the Shock Trauma pager as an active member of the trauma or medical team first responders. Each resident is scheduled for a protected "procedure shift" for every rotation in the Emergency Department.
As part of the Cincinnati Children's team you will have numerous opportunities to resuscitate our pediatric human patient simulator – a $230,000 blinking, talking, breathing, realistic mannequin called PediaSim. PediaSim is approximately the size of a 7-year-old child weighing 20 kilograms. He simulates "real" physiologic responses to critical injury and medical interventions. He features a realistic airway and realistic pulmonary, cardiovascular, metabolic and neurologic responses, and can be programmed to display a wide range of conditions and symptoms. The chief residents coordinate mock codes for inpatient teams, honing leadership skills in caring for critically ill children. A Cincinnati Children's resident is a confident, prepared resident.
