Quality pediatric critical care is at the heart of Stony Brook Children's. Our 10-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), provides the region's most advanced, family-centered critical care to Suffolk County's most seriously ill and injured children.
Approximately 800 patients — many of whom are transferred to us from other hospitals — are admitted to Stony Brook Children’s PICU each year.
Problems that may need critical care include complicated pre- and post-surgical care, injuries from accidents, serious infections and severe breathing problems. Patients can range in age from infants to early twenties.
While in the PICU, all patients receive close, constant attention from a team of specially trained health professionals overseen by attending pediatric intensivists — physicians specializing in the delivery of critical care to children. These pediatric intensivists are at Stony Brook 24/7. Among the services we deliver are continuous renal replacement therapy (dialysis), high frequency oscillatory ventilation (breathing machine), inhaled nitric oxide therapy, and moderate or deep sedation for children undergoing painful procedures, both on an inpatient and outpatient basis.
In addition, the Division of Pediatric Critical Care is extensively involved in research, education and family advocacy.
Our Team
The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit is led by Katharine V. Biagas, MD, FCCM, FAAP. Pediatric critical care medicine is a complex and highly sophisticated branch of medicine that provides comprehensive care for critically ill or injured infants and children. A strong multidisciplinary team of pediatric subspecialists, nurses, respiratory therapists and other therapists (speech, occupational, and physical), pharmacists, child life specialists, and social workers all work collaboratively to restore health to the sickest children. Physicians throughout Stony Brook Children's interact and collaborate with the PICU.
Ten board-certified pediatric intensive care physicians and three specialty nurse practitioners oversee and coordinate all the members of each child's care team. Our intensivists include:
