About Critical Care

The Pediatric Critical Care Unit is a 12-bed unit (eight tertiary care beds and four Level 2-intermediate care beds) that functions as a referral centre for the catchment areas of Waterloo-Wellington and Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant (LHIN's 3 and 4) comprising 2.2 million people. The PCCU is currently located at the McMaster site of McMaster Children's Hospital on Ward 3B.

The PCCU provides intensive care for a wide range of complex, rapidly changing medical, surgical and traumatic disorders occurring in pediatric patients aged 17 and under, excluding premature newborns.

The PCCU is a fully equipped medical/surgical critical care unit offering a broad range of therapies for the full complement of pediatric subspecialty services at McMaster Children's Hospital. Care in the PCCU is delivered by a multi-disciplinary team of pediatric intensivists, specialized pediatric critical care nurses, RRCPs, clinical pharmacists, social workers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, a dietitian, child life specialists and chaplains.

The PCCU supports a Pediatric Critical Care RN/RT Transport Team. This is a team with specialized expertise in transport of critically ill children, used for retrieval of critically ill children within our health care region. In addition, the McMaster Children's Hospital Medical Emergency Team (PACE Team) is run by the PCCU and provides acute assessment and management of critically ill children throughout the hospital.  The PACE Team also offers extramural support to the health care region by providing 24/7 telephone access to a pediatric intensivist who is available to offer advice to community physicians regarding patient management or transport.

In addition to providing clinical service, members of the Division actively participate in education and collaborative research and are members of the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group. Current studies include:  The hypotonic versus isotonic parenteral (HIP) fluid trial, the pediatric consent study, the attention and outcome following traumatic brain injury study, the validation of pediatric cerebral performance category (PCPC) (revised) score in pediatric head injured patients, assessing barriers to implementation of pediatric critical care best practice guidelines for initial management in nontertiary centres, implementation and evaluation of a quality end-of-life care protocol in a tertiary care academic health sciences centre. 

The PCCU participates in the education of nursing, RRCP and undergraduate medical students and clerks; PGY2-5 residents from pediatrics, anesthesiology and emergency medicine, as well as learners from allied health care disciplines. The Division also supports a pediatric critical care fellowship program to train specialists in the field.  Members of the Division are also active in outreach education and continuing medical education for pediatricians, emergency physicians and emergency and critical care nurses. The Division conducts regular PALS and APLS courses both within the institution and throughout the region. In addition, the Division runs a high fidelity simulation program which facilitates education and research in pediatric acute care.

Division Members

Dr. Cynthia Cupido
Division Head, Critical Care
Associate Professor

Dr. Karen Choong
Associate Professor,
Critical Care

Dr. Jon Gilleland
Assistant Professor

Dr. Lennox Huang
Associate Professor

Dr. Rob Lloyd
Associate Professor

Dr. Melissa Parker
Assistant Professor

What's New

The Division is excited to be participating in the planning and building of a brand new state of the art Michael G. DeGroote 12-bed PCCU. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.