Position Overview

Understanding the Role

A Rare Opportunity in Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care

Ochsner Hospital for Children is recruiting a fellowship-trained Pediatric Cardiac Intensivist to join one of the most advanced congenital heart programs in the Gulf South. This is not a position built around routine volume. It is a role designed for a physician who wants to practice at the highest level of complexity, alongside surgeons and cardiologists who share that same standard.

The need for this position is straightforward: the program is growing, acuity is rising, and Ochsner is making a deliberate move to separate the CV-ICU and PICU into independently staffed units. Right now, one team can cover both. The goal is to have a dedicated CV-ICU physician on during the day and a separate backup physician at night, ensuring that the sickest cardiac patients in the region always have a specialist whose sole focus is them. Unique patients across the pediatric service line have grown 40% system-wide, and that trajectory is not slowing down.

Layered on top of that growth is a major capital investment: a brand-new Children's Hospital is breaking ground in 2024 and opening in 2027. The new CV-ICU will expand from its current 12 beds to 20, and the physician joining now will help shape what that unit becomes. That kind of institutional momentum is rare, and so is the chance to be part of it from the beginning.

  • Role: Pediatric Cardiac Intensivist, CV-ICU
  • Setting: Ochsner Hospital for Children, New Orleans, LA; inpatient critical care
  • Board certification in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine required; fellowship training in cardiac critical care preferred
  • Schedule: 14 shifts per month, 12-hour in-house shifts; maximum of 5 night shifts per month, with senior physicians typically scheduled for 2 to 3
  • Reporting: Collaborative structure within the congenital heart program; physician-led organization
  • Academic appointment: Potential affiliations with Xavier University, MD Anderson, and University of Queensland; new Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine opens in 2027
  • Position type: New/expansion role driven by program growth and the strategic separation of CV-ICU and PICU coverage

You are joining a program that already performs over 200 open-heart surgeries per year, manages 300-plus CV-ICU admissions annually, and runs the only heart transplant and ventricular assist device program in the state of Louisiana. The physician who fills this role is not backfilling a gap. They are helping Ochsner reach the next level.

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