Children's Heart Center Team

The Heart Center team at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital consists of specialists who have been specifically trained to diagnose and treat infants, children and adolescents with heart disease or congenital heart defects.

The team includes:

• Pediatric cardiologists
  
  
• Pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons
  
  
• Specialists in echocardiography, electrophysiology, heart failure and transplantation, and interventional catheterization; neonatologists
  
  
• Critical care specialists
  
  
• Anesthesiologists
  
  
• Clinical nurse specialists
  
  
• Exceptional nursing staff
  
  
• Exercise physiologists
  
  
• Respiratory therapists
  
  
• Social workers
  
  
• Superb support staff

This collaborative team approach is designed to meet all of the complex medical, emotional and social needs of our patients and their families.

If your child has been diagnosed with a heart murmur, abnormal heart rhythm, congenital heart defect or other heart disease, you'll be referred to a pediatric cardiologist. A pediatric cardiologist is a doctor who has completed training in pediatrics and has also received special training in the diagnosis and management of heart disease in infants, children and young adults. Heart problems in children are quite different from those in adults, and thus pediatric cardiologists receive very different training than adult cardiologists.

At Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, all our cardiologists practice pediatric cardiology full-time and are certified in Pediatric Cardiology by the American Board of Pediatrics.

Our pediatric cardiologists have the training and equipment to find out if your child's heart problem requires regular checkups over a long time or for special tests, medical care or heart surgery.

Pediatric heart specialists at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital include experts in:

• echocardiography and non-invasive imaging (including 3-D CT scan and MRI)
  
  
• electrophysiology, arrhythmia management and radiofrequency ablation
  
  
• exercise physiology and cardiac disease prevention
  
  
• heart failure management and transplantation
  
  
• interventional catheterization

Besides our cardiologists and heart surgeons, our team includes specialists in other areas such as pediatric cardiac anesthesia, pediatric intensive care and neonatology (the care of newborns). All of our heart team specialists are trained specifically in the care of infants and children and all of their practices are dedicated to pediatrics.

If your child requires heart surgery, you will be referred to a pediatric cardiovascular surgeon. Our heart surgeons perform a wide array of surgical procedures, ranging from minimally invasive surgery, to the repair of complex congenital heart disease, to heart transplants.

Our pediatric surgeons have been specially trained to treat heart disease in infants, children and adolescents. Again, as heart problems in children are quite different from those in adults, pediatric cardiovascular surgeons receive very specialized training.

Our cardiovascular surgery team specializes in -- and has pioneered the techniques of -- minimally invasive surgery, which means fewer complications, less pain, shorter hospital stays and a quicker recovery for patients.