Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care

Description of Research Expertise

Vinay Nadkarni MD is an Associate Professor of Anesthesia and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the director of the pediatric critical care medicine fellowship training program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He works in a 45-bed tertiary PICU that admits approximately 2700 patients per year. He shares responsibility for patient care and teaching with 15 board certified pediatric intensive care physicians and 15 pediatric critical care fellows. Dr. Nadkarni completed a Masters degree in Physiology at Georgetown University, and his M.D. at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. He completed his pediatric residency, chief residency and critical care fellowship at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Dr Nadkarni has a local, regional, national and international interest in CPR, pediatric resuscitation, and resuscitation education. He has lectured nationally and internationally on resuscitation issues and training. He has been an invited visiting professor and lecturer at numerous academic centers including Adelaide, Beijing, Boston, Budapest, Buffalo, Christchurch, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dallas, Melbourne, Philadelphia, Sao Paolo, Stavanger, Tokyo, Toronto, Venice and Washington DC. He has served as chairman of the American Heart Association (AHA) National Committee on Pediatric Resuscitation, and the AHA Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, a national editor for the Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) training materials, and is currently a member of the AHA Science Advisory and Coordinating Committee. He serves as a member of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) that has recently developed and published advisory statements on resuscitation guidelines for newborns, infants and children in Europe, North America, South America, Southern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. He is a founding member of the Science Advisory Board of the AHA National Registry of CPR. He has co-chaired international consensus conferences to review and develop a strategy for international registries of CPR events. He was the Co-chair of the 2005 International Consensus Conference on Emergency Cardiovascular Care and Resuscitation Science, and helped to organize the AHA Resuscitation Science Symposia 2003-2006. He serves as President, Board of Directors, AHA Pennsylvania-Delaware Affiliate, and the national Chairman of the AHA’s International Committee. He is a board member of the Citizen CPR Foundation and the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies. He is a Fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the AHA. He also serves on the AHA National Spokesperson Panel.

Dr. Nadkarni balances his clinical and administrative time with investigations of CPR and critical care medicine in the laboratory and clinical outcomes settings. He is an investigator on three NIH research grants. He is a leader in simulation education development on the University of Pennsylvania campus, and has served as an educational consultant to develop infant and child high fidelity simulators. As a member of the Society for Critical Care Medicine for more than 10 years, he has delivered more than 50 presentations at the annual SCCM Education and Scientific Symposia, and received three major SCCM research awards: the 1990 National In-Training Award, the 1999 National Neuroscience Specialty Award, and the 2003 National Pediatric Specialty Award. He is the course director for the 2006 National SCCM Pediatric Critical Care Concepts Course. He has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 25 book chapters related to the practice of pediatric critical care medicine.

Dr. Nadkarni believes that a healthy academic career must be balanced by a healthy home and family life, a spirit of volunteerism, and good citizenship. He is married to Ellen Deutsch MD, a pediatric Otolaryngologist practicing in Delaware and specializing in laryngotracheal reconstruction, and has 3 children: Lauren 18, Lindsay 15 and Andrew 11. His local and regional service has included the State Abuse Intervention committee, Emergency Medical Services Committee, Child Death Review Committee, and Wilmington Homeless clinic. In addition, he is a board member for the Delaware Chapter of Operation Smile, a national non-profit, non-sectarian medical organization. Over the past 15 years, Dr. Nadkarni has volunteered time to provide pediatric critical care support services on 10 international missions with Operation Smile, including Kenya, Morocco, Philippines, Russia, China, and Colombia and Ecuador.