The COVID-19 pandemic is amplifying historic inequities worldwide. These inequities include not only gender disparities, but also systemic racism and an overall lack of diversity and representation in all areas of professional life.

There are eight of us, all women, all physicians who take care of the sickest children in the nation in Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs) in the Midwest, the East Coast, the West Coast and the South. Some of us work in community hospitals, and some of us work at nationally rated hospitals, the kind everyone knows. The PICU is the last line of defense for children, but the system is not designed to take on this magnitude of preventable illnesses. This is what haunts us: the reality that we might not be able to care for every child who needs us. We are pro-vaccine, pro-masks and pro-child.

She went on to specialize in pediatric medicine and then completed a 3 year fellowship in pediatric critical care. She is the doctor who takes care of the sickest of the sick kids…kids who are so sick that they wind up in the pediatric intensive care unit. She is probably someone you never want your kids to have a reason to meet, but if your kid is that sick, she is undoubtedly the person you want taking care of them.

Accurate resuscitation of pediatric patients with large thermal injury is critical to achieving optimal outcomes. The goal of this project was to describe the degree of variability in resuscitation guidelines among pediatric burn centers and the impact on fluid estimates.

Patients with suspected or confirmed MIS-C should be monitored closely for abdominal catastrophe, especially when critically ill in the intensive care unit.

Many pediatric hospitals have resources to care for severely burned patients but lack standardized care guidelines, which improve outcomes. To improve the morbidity and mortality of severely burned pediatric patients admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit, we created a specialized burn team. We implemented Pediatric Severe Burn Guidelines, focusing on improving fluid resuscitation accuracy and providing timely nutritional support.

We've had a lot of questions from our listeners about the differences between COVID-19 and the seasonal flu. In this episode, we answer a lot of those questions. Blue Valley's Dr. Chris Jenson is joined by Jenna Miller, MD, FAAP, from Children's Mercy to discuss how these viruses can affect us, the amount of time they can continue to affect us, and how the vaccines are produced to stop them.

There’s significant and growing health disparity and inequity for children in the U.S.. As clinicians who bear witness to those widening disparities and inequities, we have a responsibility to advocate for policies that can improve the health of all children. Gun violence is the second leading cause of death in the United States and is associated with increasing critical care resource use, yet we do not have adequate funding for research about firearm safety and injury prevention. Poverty is a major social determinant of health for children and increases the utilization of pediatric critical care. Black children have an increased risk of complications and mortality following surgery, even if they were healthy prior to the procedure. Our patients under the age of 18 can’t vote—we can. As pediatric intensivists, we have a responsibility to ask candidates who are campaigning for office what they’ll do to improve the health of children. Then we must vote.

EV-D68 causes severe disease in the pediatric population, particularly in children with asthma and recurrent wheeze; children may require multiple adjunctive respiratory therapies.