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Background: Point-of-care ultrasound is an invaluable bedside tool for anesthesiologists and has been integrated into anesthesiology residency training and board certification in the United States. Little is known about point-of-care ultrasound training practices in pediatric anesthesia fellowship programs., Aims: To describe the current state of point-of-care ultrasound education in pediatric anesthesia fellowship programs in the United States., Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey study distributed to 60 American Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited pediatric anesthesia fellowship programs. Two programs were in their initial accreditation period and were excluded due to lack of historical data. Program directors or associate program directors were invited to complete this 23-item survey., Results: Thirty-three of fifty-eight programs (57%) completed the survey. Of those, 15 programs (45%) reported having a point-of-care ultrasound curriculum. Programs with ≤3 fellows per year were less likely to have an ultrasound curriculum compared to programs with ≥4 fellows per year (30% programs 0-3 fellows/year vs. 69% programs ≥4 fellows/year, odds ratio 0.19 [95% confidence intervals 0.04-0.87]; p = .03). Program directors and associate program directors rated point-of-care ultrasound training as highly valuable to fellows' education. Barriers to use most commonly included lack of experience (64%), lack of oversight/interpretive guidance (58%), and lack of time (45%). Programs without point-of-care ultrasound training had significantly higher odds of listing lack of ultrasound access as a primary barrier (50% programs without vs. 13% programs with, odds ratio 6.5, [95% confidence intervals 1.3-50]; p = .04)., Conclusions: This observational survey-based study suggests that fewer than half of pediatric anesthesia training programs in the United States offer point-of-care ultrasound education. Additional research is needed to optimize this education and training in pediatric anesthesia fellowship programs., (© 2024 The Authors. Pediatric Anesthesia published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Parents of children in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) are often unprepared for family meetings (FM). Clinicians often do not follow best practices for communicating with families, adding to distress. An interprofessional team intervention for FM is feasible, acceptable, and positively impacts family preparation and conduct of FM in the CICU. We implemented a family- and team-support intervention for conducting FM and conducted a pretest-posttest study with parents of patients selected for a FM and clinicians. We measured feasibility, fidelity to intervention protocol, and parent acceptability via questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Clinician behavior in meetings was assessed through semantic content analyses of meeting transcripts tracking elicitation of parental concerns, questions asked of parents, and responses to parental empathic opportunities. Logistic and ordinal logistic regression assessed intervention impact on clinician communication behaviors in meetings comparing pre- and post-intervention data. Sixty parents (95% of approached) were enrolled, with collection of 97% FM and 98% questionnaire data. We accomplished > 85% fidelity to intervention protocol. Most parents (80%) said the preparation worksheet had the right amount of information and felt positive about families receiving this worksheet. Clinicians were more likely to elicit parental concerns (adjusted odds ratio = 3.42; 95%CI [1.13, 11.0]) in post-intervention FM. There were no significant differences in remaining measures. Implementing an interprofessional team intervention to improve family preparation and conduct of FM is locally feasible, acceptable, and changes clinician behaviors. Future research should assess broader impact of training on clinicians, patients, and families., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Myocarditis is a common cause of pediatric heart failure which may require mechanical circulatory support (MCS). The purpose of this study is to describe MCS strategies used in a nationwide cohort of pediatric patients with myocarditis, identify trends over time, and compare outcomes between MCS strategies., Methods: This study utilized the Kids' Inpatient Database (KID), a national sample of administrative discharge data. KID admissions from 2003-2016 were queried using ICD-9/10 codes to identify those with a diagnosis of myocarditis. MCS outcomes were compared using logistic regression., Results: Of 5,661 admissions for myocarditis, MCS was used in 424 (7.5%), comprised of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in 312 (73.6%), including 32 (10.2%) instances of extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR), temporary ventricular assist devices (tVAD) in 28 (6.6%), durable VAD (dVAD) in 42 (9.9%) and combination MCS in 42 (9.9%). MCS use increased over time (p=0.031), but MCS strategies did not significantly change. Mortality was high in the MCS group (28.3%). There was no difference in odds of death in the VAD only or combination MCS group compared to the non-ECPR ECMO group (p=0.07 and p=0.65, respectively)., Conclusion: MCS is used in 1 in 13 pediatric myocarditis cases, and MCS use is increasing over time with ECMO remaining the most frequently used modality. Mortality remains high in patients that receive MCS but does not differ between those receiving VAD or combination MCS as compared to non-ECPR ECMO on unadjusted analysis. Further prospective analysis is required to evaluate the relative effectiveness of MCS modalities in this disease.