VI
INTRODUCTION
(^)
To the Members of APSA:
Two years ago, a group of pediatric surgeons with interest and training in surgical
critical care met to cultivate and enhance our collective experience within pediatric
surgery. We felt that as pediatric surgeons, our voices remain unique, relevant and
valuable in caring for our patients, in the training of our fellows, and in informing our
colleagues. One of the first projects that we embarked upon is a Handbook of Pediatric
Surgical Critical Care. We felt that this would create a uniform basis for our critical care
and pediatric surgical curriculum. We also thought that this handbook would provide
another dimension to the training for neonatology, pediatric critical care, and adult
critical care fellows. Finally, we felt that this project may be helpful to our colleagues,
who already in practice, as a point of reference in the care of the most complex surgical
patients.
I personally would like to thank all the contributors to this seminal project. We also
thank APSA Staff for helping us put this project together. We would also like to thank
APSA for allowing the website to be the platform for dissemination of the handbook.
The authors of this handbook welcome any and all comments from the membership.
Marjorie J. Arca, MD
Editor