Pediatric Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine

Overview of Pediatric Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine

The Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital provides inpatient and ambulatory anesthesia for infants and children in the general operating rooms and other satellite locations, including Radiation Oncology Services at UW Medical Center.

Seattle Children’s is the top-ranked pediatric hospital in Washington and the Pacific Northwest, providing primary, secondary, and tertiary pediatric care for an extended, five-state referral area encompassing Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. It is also ranked third in the Pacific Region, which includes Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington.

Bellevue Clinic and Surgery Center

Our pediatric ambulatory surgery center in Bellevue, operating since 2010, is one of the first surgery centers in the country designed and built using Integrated Facility Design (IFD). IFD promotes efficient work flow resulting in improved patient outcomes. The Bellevue Surgery Center is staffed by a team of experienced anesthesia attending physicians and certified registered nurse anesthetists experienced in pediatric ambulatory care. The Center supports an active regional anesthesia program including peripheral nerve catheters and performs thousands of peripheral nerve blocks annually.

By the numbers

Seattle Children’s has 364 beds, including 167 in the medical/surgical units, 64 in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit PICU (including Cardiac ICU), and 32 in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). We perform over 11,250 outpatient surgeries annually (including 4,000 at the Bellevue Surgery Center) and 3,900 inpatient surgeries. We have more than 9,000 total active employees including 2,000 total active medical staff, 1,000 physicians in training and more than 300 medical students in training.

Our division is represented in all surgical subspecialties at Children’s, including cardiac surgery, solid organ transplantation (heart, liver, kidney, small bowel), orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, major craniofacial surgery, as well as diagnostic and interventional radiology procedures. Pediatric experts in nearly 60 subspecialties, provide inpatient, outpatient, diagnostic, surgical, rehabilitative, behavioral, emergency and outreach services. Each year, we administer approximately 24,000 anesthetics to children of all ages, surgical conditions, and severities of illness.

Pediatric Pain Management

Through our dedicated Pediatric Pain Management Team, we provide a full range of diagnostic and therapeutic acute and chronic pain services, including postoperative pain management, outpatient pain clinic, and complementary or alternative medicine techniques.

Research interests

Our faculty lead multidisciplinary efforts in basic science, clinical, epidemiology and health services, quality improvement, and education research at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Research Institute at the Research Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development, the Center for Clinical and Translational Research, and the Center for Integrative Brain Research, among others. Medical students, residents and postdoctoral fellows are active participants in our research. We also partner with Seattle Children’s Research Institute’s Summer Scholars Program and the UW College of Engineering to mentor undergraduate students.