Training in Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care

In the last two decades, there has been significant improvement in the field of pediatric cardiac critical care medicine with increasing number of children with heart diseases who required management in critical care areas. The progress in this field follows advancement in different fields of medicine including pediatric cardiology, cardiac surgery, and intensive care medicine. The complexity of care for children with critical cardiac condition requires a specialized unit and an expert team. Having a qualified team of physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists with experience and knowledge who take care of critically ill children with cardiac diseases can improve the outcome. Studies demonstrated that establishment of a dedicated pediatric cardiac intensive care unit has shown better outcomes in terms of earlier extubation, reduced infection, and faster discharge from the ICU (for further reading, see ref. 1).