Here the latest technology and medications are administered under the non-stop watch of dozens of doctors, nurses, therapists and technicians. At this crossroads of pediatric medicine and surgery, many patients and families travel the most difficult journeys of their lives. Critically-ill children and teens, weighing a couple of pounds to a couple of hundred pounds, bring every conceivable disease, congenital anomaly and injury to the 19 beds in the intensive care unit at Cardinal Glennon Children s Hospital. The unit s physicians and nurses work closely with doctors from many subspecialties to accompany their patients through the most crucial hours of recovery. We have patients from all of the medical and surgical subspecialties.
Serious illnesses tend to involve more than one organ system.
The level of complexity in a center like this is such that there is not any one specialty that is going to handle it. Many children admitted to the intensive care unit simply need assistance with breathing until their bodies can do it on their own again. About 60 percent of our patients end up on mechanical ventilation during their course. Our role is to support the patient while mother nature fixes whatever has gone wrong and natural healing processes have a chance to turn things around. About half of the patients who spend time in the intensive care unit are recovering from surgery.