Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Scholarship

Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Group at Conference

Our program follows the American Board of Pediatrics principles regarding the assessment of scholarly activity. All fellows participate in a core curriculum of scholarly activities, including engaging in scholarly projects in which they develop the research skill set required to conduct independent research projects at the conclusion of their fellowship. Fellows are taught through mentorship, so special attention is given to the appropriate matching of mentor and fellow. Given our large patient population and diverse faculty, fellows can choose their research niche and are not constrained to any specific topics or study design.

Five Pediatric Critical Care Medicine fellows during a research poster presentation. The group is posed on the sides of a poster with their arms on each other's shoulders.

Pediatric Critical Care Medicine fellows during a research poster presentation.

Three Pediatric Critical Care Fellows stand shoulder-to-shoulder during the Critical Care Congress event.

Pediatric Critical Care Fellows attend the Critical Care Congress event.

Our division has an excellent track record of basic, translational, clinical, qualitative, and educational research. We have a wide range of research collaborations among top investigators throughout the Texas Medical Center, the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Rice University, and the University of Houston. These include studies on nutritional requirements in critical illness; developmental aspects of nutrition; inflammation and immune function; coagulopathy; traumatic brain injury; basic and pathophysiologic mechanisms of liver, lung, and heart function; long-term follow-up of critically ill children; outcomes analysis; the effect of sepsis and stress on gut motility; and testing novel microfluidic devices in vitro and in vivo. Opportunities for educational scholarship also exist as past collaborations have included the application of evidence-based pedagogy to optimize clinical learning and quality improvement, innovations for clinical instruction, assessment and feedback and medical simulation for crisis resource management.

Our training program assists fellows in identifying a primary research mentor and scholarly activity. The primary scholarship mentor along with the Scholarship Oversight Committee oversee the fellow’s progress as related to their scholarly activity. Mentors include experienced investigators within our Pediatric Critical Care division, as well as, across specialties and institutions throughout the Texas Medical Center and Rice University. Fellows present their research during the Critical Care division's "Research Conference” and have the opportunity to submit to local, national, and international conferences.

The following are some areas of scholarship in which the members of our Pediatric Critical Care division are currently publishing:

Clinical Research/Quality Improvement

Translational Research

Educational Research

Laboratory-Based Biomedical Research

Publications

To provide an idea about the breadth of our fellows’ scholarship, below is a list of fellows’ scholarly activities that were published during their time in the program:

  1. Tsang, R, Checcia P, Bronicki RA. Hemodynamic Monitoring in the Acute Management of Pediatric Heart Failure. Curr Cardiol Rev. 2016;12(2):112-6. PMID: 26585037
  2. Krennerich EC, Validation of a Pediatric Early Warning Score in Hospitalized Pediatric Oncology and Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Patients, Critical Appraisal of Agulnik A et al. Pediatric Crit Care Med 2016 April; 17 (4):e146-e153, PedsCCM Evidence-Based Journal Club.
  3. Davalos MC, Samuels K, Meyer AN, Thammasitboon S, Sur M, Roy K, Al-Mutairi A, Singh H. Finding Diagnostic Errors in Children Admitted to the PICU. Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2017 Mar;18(3):265-271. doi: 10.1097/PCC.0000000000001059. PMID: 28125548
  4. Hipp DM, Rialon KL, Nevel K, Kothari AN, Jardine LDA. "Back to Bedside": Residents' and Fellows' Perspectives on Finding Meaning in Work. J Grad Med Educ. 2017 Apr;9(2):269-273. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-17-00136.1. PMID: 28439376; PMCID: PMC5398141.
  5. Onyearugbulem C, Williams L, Zhu H, Gazzaneo MC, Das S, Lam F, Coss-Bu JA, Munoz FM. Determination of Modifiable Risk Factors for Infection in the Early Post Lung Transplant Period for Pediatric Cystic Fibrosis Patients. The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation. 2017 Apr; 36(4):S276.
  6. Al-Mutairi A, Meyer AN, Thomas EJ, Etchegaray JM, Roy KM, Davalos MC, Sheikh S, Singh H. Accuracy of the Safer Dx Instrument to Identify Diagnostic Errors in Primary Care. J Gen Intern Med. 2016 Jun;31(6):602-8. doi: 10.1007/s11606-016-3601-x. Epub 2016 Feb 22. PMID: 26902245; PMCID: PMC4870415.
  7. Morales-Demori, R., Congenital heart disease and cardiac procedural outcomes in patients with trisomy 21 and Turner syndrome. Congenital Heart Disease, 12(6), (2017) 820-827. doi:10.1111/chd.12521
  8. Krennerich E, Sitler CG, Shah M, Lam F, Graf J. Retrospective review of pediatric transport. Where do our patients go after transport. Air Med Journal, 2017 Nov - Dec;36(6):332-338
  9. Ali W, Bubolz BA, Nguyen L, et al. Epilepsy is associated with ventricular alterations following convulsive status epilepticus in children. Epilepsia Open. 2017;2(4):432-440. doi:10.1002/epi4.12074
  10. Kitagawa, MG., Reynolds JO, Wehrens XHT, Bryan RM Jr, Pandit LM. Hemodynamic and Pathologic Characterization of the TASK-1-/- Mouse Does Not Demonstrate Pulmonary Hypertension. Front Med (Lausanne). 2017 Oct 23; 4:177. PMID: 29109948
  11. Kitagawa MG, Ettinger N, Breen D, Erklauer J, Change E, Herce H, King K, Naik S. Transmission of West Nile Virus Through a Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant. J Pediatric Infect Dis Soc. 2018 May 15; 7(2): e52-e54. PMID: 29309636.
  12. Labarinas S, Meulmester K, Greene S, Thomas J, Virk M, Erkonen G. Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation After Diphenhydramine Ingestion. J Med Toxicol. 2018 Sep;14(3):253-256. doi: 10.1007/s13181-018-0672-6. Epub 2018 Jun 28. PMID: 29956117 Pubmed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29956117
  13. Bernardo, E. O., Cruz, A. T., Buffone, G. J., Devaraj, S., Loftis, L. L., & Arikan, A. A. (2018). Community- acquired Acute Kidney Injury Among Children Seen in the Pediatric Emergency Department. Academic Emergency Medicine. doi:10.1111/acem.13421
  14. Goldman J, Desai MS, McClain KL, Tcharmtchi MH, Kennedy CE, Thompson K, Lam F, Bashir DA, Chinn IK, Golderg BR, Allen CE, Nguyen TC; Hepatobiliary dysfunction and Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation Increase Risk of Mortality in Pediatric Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis. Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2018 Oct;19(10):e522-e530. doi: 10.1097/PCC.0000000000001684
  15. Afonso N, Checchia PA; Avoiding kidney injury in the surgical patient: further defining the role of age. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2018 Jan Jan;155(1):266-267. doi: 10.1016/j.jtcvs.2017.09.032. Epub 2017 Sep 18. PMID:29897738
  16. McHugh KE, Mahle WT, Hall MA, Scheurer MA, Moga MA, Triedman J, Nicolson SC, Amula V, Cooper DS, Schamberger M, Wolf M, Shekerdemian L, Burns KM, Ash KE, Hipp DM, Pasquali SK for the Pediatric Heart Network Investigators. Hospital Costs Related to early extubation after infant cardiac surgery. The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. 2019 May;107(5):1421-1426. PMID 30458158.
  17. Rissmiller BJ, Castro D, Minard CG, Sur M, Roy K, Turner T & Thammasitboon S. (2019) The diagnostic expertise acceleration module (DEAM): promoting the formation of organized knowledge, Medical Education Online, 24:1, DOI: 10.1080/10872981.2019.1679945
  18. Gorgis NM, Kennedy C, Lam F, et al. Clinical Consequences of Cardiomyopathy in Children With Biliary Atresia Requiring Liver Transplantation. Hepatology. 2019; 69(3):1206-1218. doi:10.1002/hep.30204
  19. Kitagawa MG, Reynolds JO, Durgan D, Rodney G, Karmouty-Quintana H, Bryan R, Pandit LM. Twik-2 -/- mouse demonstrates pulmonary vascular heterogeneity in intracellular pathways for vasoreactivity. Physiol Rep. 2019 Jan; 7(1): e13950. PMID: 30632293
  20. Adler, A, Brown K, Conlin F, Thammasitiboon S, Chandrakantan, A. Cardiac and lung point-of-care ultrasound in pediatric anesthesia and critical care medicine: Uses, pitfalls, and future directions to optimize pediatric care. Paediatric Aneaesthesia. August 2019.
  21. Muisyo, T, Bernardo, E, Camazine M, Colvin R, Thomas K, Borgman M, Spinella, P. Mortality Prediction in Pediatric Trauma. Journal of Pediatric Surgery. August 2019.
  22. Meulmester KM, Coss-Bu JA, Meskill SD, Wakefield BM, Moore RH, Vachani JG, Bavare AC. Characteristics and Outcomes of Pediatric Rapid Response With a Respiratory Trigger. Hospital Pediatrics. Aug 2021, 11 (8) 806-807; DOI: 10.1542/hpeds.2020-004630