Integrating tailored approaches in perioperative care strategies for neurodivergent individuals

Through my clinical expertise as a pediatric anesthesiologist and pain specialist, I am reminded every day of the challenges our pediatric patients and their families experience when undergoing a surgical procedure. Acute pain management in pediatrics is associated with numerous age-specific complexities, and unfortunately, many interventions that are easily accessible in adults remain out of reach for children due to lack of clinical knowledge and missing pharmacologic data. My research is focused on developing and analyzing innovative approaches to improve functional outcomes after pediatric surgery through interventional and observational clinical trials. As a physician-scientist, my goal is to advance our understanding of existing and novel analgesics to provide safe, effective, and personalized perioperative pain management in children and adolescents.

My overall goal is to elucidate mechanisms of and risk factors for perioperative acute kidney injury in patients undergoing heart surgery with emphasis the role of early recovery of kidney function. A special area of interest is the phenomenon of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. We have successfully developed an algorithm to help simplify the detection of diastolic dysfunction using echocardiography during heart surgery. A future goal is to explore interventions that help prevent or reduce the severity of diastolic dysfunction postoperatively.