The Division of Neonatology’s mission is to improve the neonatal outcome of pregnancy by providing the region’s best evidence-based neonatal clinical care, educating the next generation of neonatal caregivers and advancing neonatal scholarship.
For several years, the Neonatology division faculty have provided daily clinical service and medical direction at four regional neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). The 19-bed NICU at Seattle Children’s Hospital provides care for critically ill newborns and infants with a wide variety of problems including prematurity, infection, and cardiac and surgical birth defects. Key services include inhaled nitric oxide treatment, high-frequency ventilation, tracheostomy, dialysis, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). The University of Washington Medical Center NICU is equipped to handle some of the highest-risk obstetrical deliveries in the nation, and its new 50-bed NICU specializes in the care of extremely preterm infants and stabilization of newborns with birth defects. The 29-bed NICU at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett serves high-risk newborns in the northern end of the Seattle metropolitan region, and receives many neonatal referrals north of Everett. The new 18-bed NICU at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue serves patients on the eastern side of Lake Washington.
Beginning April 2013, the Neonatology division faculty will provide daily clinical service and medical direction for the Franciscan Health System, including the level III NICU at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and the level II Special Care Nursery at St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way. They work closely with Children’s Neonatal Nurse Practitioners at St. Joseph, St. Francis, Providence, Overlake, and Seattle Children’s. The Neonatology division also provides support to Children’s Pediatric Hospitalists at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia and Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon.
Division training programs include an ACGME-accredited fellowship training program plus medical student and pediatrics resident education. Several fellows choose to combine training in neonatology with a complementary MPH, as a result of increasing interest in global neonatal health. Division faculty also participate in and direct regional educational programs in the WWAMI region, notably the Children’s Infant Transport Program, Airlift Northwest, the Children’s Physician Consultation Line, and the UW Center on Human Development and Disability’s High-Risk Infant Follow-up Clinic.
Current bench lab research programs are focused on the effects of narcotics on the developing brain, erythropoietin (EPO) and neuroprotection as well as the effects of neonatal stress on neurodevelopment. Clinical research focuses on clinical trials of EPO in preterm infants, biomedical informatics, medical education, use of newborn infant simulators, global health and epidemiologic research. Recent recruitments into the division include Dr. Colin Studholme (2011), Taylor Sawyer (2012), Dr. Janna Patterson (2010), and Dr. Elizabeth Jacobson Misbe (2011).