The CV-ICU at Ochsner Hospital for Children is staffed by physicians trained across the full spectrum of pediatric cardiac critical care, including pediatric cardiac intensivists, pediatric critical care specialists, pediatric cardiologists, and pediatric cardiac anesthesiologists. This is not a unit where one or two physicians carry the load. It is a deliberately assembled, multidisciplinary team that participates in national quality initiatives and has earned recognition for its ability to prevent complications including infections and pressure ulcers. The standard of care here is measurable, and the team takes that seriously.
The CV-ICU physician group includes Lutifat Kashimawo, MD; Joyce Varghese, DO; Jessica Hahn, MD; and Israel Temple, MD, along with Catherine Gretchen, MD; Ashley Scheffer, MD; and Emily Avgerinos, MD. Three advanced practice providers support the unit: Adrienne Arnold, CPNP-AC; Michelle Theard, CPNP-AC; and Cristina Oliver, CPNP-AC. The APP team is currently expanding toward 24/7 coverage, which will further reduce the burden on attendings for routine overnight management.
The cardiac surgery team is led by Benjamin Peeler, MD, Chief of Pediatric and Adult Congenital Cardiac Surgery, and includes David Greenhouse, MD; Dennis Wells, MD; and Kathryn Smiley, PA-C. These are the surgeons whose patients you will be managing post-operatively, and the collaborative relationship between surgery and the CV-ICU is a defining feature of how this program operates.
The pediatric cardiology group is equally deep, with subspecialty coverage across advanced heart failure and transplant, electrophysiology, congenital heart disease, and advanced imaging:
The intensivist team in the adjacent PICU, trained at institutions including Massachusetts General, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Miami, Phoenix, and UC Denver, provides additional backup and resource coverage during the day shift. Pulmonology, nephrology, and cardiac anesthesia round out the collaborative support available to you in the unit.
You are joining a team where the depth of subspecialty expertise around you is genuinely rare outside of major academic centers, and in some respects, this program offers access that even large academic centers cannot match: the only pediatric heart transplant and VAD program in the state, all concentrated in one building, with the people who run it available and engaged.