The right stuff.

We will discuss a new initiative of the American College of Surgeons and the American Pediatric Surgical Association to prospectively define optimal resource standards for children's surgical care.

Pioneering paediatric intensive care medicine in New Zealand.

The origin of New Zealand's paediatric intensive care medicine lay in the formal establishment of Auckland Hospital's Central Respiratory Unit within the hospital's Infectious Diseases Unit (December 1958). It was initially established for the care of critically ill children, chiefly with airway and respiratory disorders or tetanus. Senior Specialist Anaesthetist Matthew Spence soon took charge, his first annual report (1960) briefly describing six children among 19 admissions and another six consulted on elsewhere. Rapid build-up of paediatric admissions-36 in 1963 becoming 104 in 1969-is detailed through Dr Spence's admirable annual reports for that period, which also provide the evidence of his organisational brilliance and personal commitment to development of the unit. Treatment for children, approximately a third of all admissions, soon included management of brain swelling from meningitis, intractable convulsions, traumatic brain injury, etc. Critically ill children were occasionally flown into Auckland; others were cared for regionally as further intensive care units developed throughout New Zealand. Successive additions to medical staffing gradually resulted in four full-time intensivists after Dr Spence's retirement in 1983. Dr James Judson computerised record-keeping from 1984 and developed a large database, containing details of children with numbers approaching 2000. At the end of 1991, the (now) Department of Critical Care Medicine completed its paediatric role over three decades, with care of children passing to a paediatric intensive care unit in the new Auckland paediatric hospital (soon to be called "Starship"). Regional intensive care units still make a substantial contribution to paediatric intensive care countrywide.

The evolution of pediatric critical care nursing: past, present, and future.

Although current nursing literature is overflowing with information related to the history of nursing in general, and even pediatric nursing, very little is published about PICU nursing. The evolution of pediatric critical care nursing is presented based on a historical context, the current state, and future projections. More specifically, this treatise focuses on the environment, the patient and family, and of course, the PICU nurse. Concluding remarks provide an insight into how health care reforms and how the use of clinical information technology will affect the role of the pediatric critical care nurse in the future.

Presença da família nas unidades de terapia intensiva pediátrica e neonatal: visão da equipe mulstidisciplinar / Family presence in the pediatric and neonatal intensive therapy unit: the view of the multidisciplinary team

O presente estudo tem por obejtivo compreender a visão da equipe multidsciplinar quanto à presença da família nas Unidades de Terapia Intensiva (UTI) pediátrica e neonatal. A pesquisa teve como eixo norteador a abordagem qualitativa. Para a análise e interpretação dos dados, optou-se pela análise de conteúdo...