The contributors to this volume deliver information on latest drug treatments and therapeutic approaches for a wide range of diseases and conditions. Coverage includes discussion of racial, ethnic, and gender differences in response to drugs and to biotechnical, pediatric and neonatal therapies.

The care of the critically ill or injured child begins with timely, prompt, and aggressive res- citation and stabilization. Ideally, stabilization should occur before the onset of organ failure in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. In the following pages, an international panel of experts provides an in-depth discussion of the early recognition, resuscitation, and stabilization of the critically ill or injured child. Once again, we would like to dedicate this textbook to our families and to the physicians and nurses who provide steadfast care every day in pediatric intensive care units across the globe. Derek S. Wheeler Hector R. Wong Thomas P. Shanley V Preface to Pediatric Critical Care Medicine: Basic Science and Clinical Evidence The ? eld of critical care medicine is growing at a tremendous pace, and tremendous advances in the understanding of critical illness have been realized in the last decade. My family has directly bene? ted from some of the technological and scienti? c advances made in the care of critically ill children. My son Ryan was born during my third year of medical school. By some peculiar happenstance, I was nearing completion of a 4-week rotation in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU). The head of the pediatrics clerkship was kind enough to let me have a few days off around the time of the delivery—my wife, Cathy, was 2 weeks past her due date and had been scheduled for elective induction.

We are honored to present the second edition of Surgical Intensive Care Medicine. Our first edition was considered to be an important contribution to the critical care literature and received excellent reviews from Critical Care Medicine, Chest, and Anesthesiology. In the second edition, the basic organization of the book remains unchanged, being composed of 60 carefully selected chapters divided into 11 sections. The book begins with general topics in primary intensive care, such as airway management and vascular cannulation, followed by categories based on medical and surgical subspecialties. While the chapters discuss definitions, pathophysiology, clinical course, complications, and prognosis, the primary emphasis is devoted to patient management. The contents of the current edition have been comprehensively upgraded and the chapters retained from the first edition have been thoroughly updated, revised, or rewritten. In this second edition, some new topics have been added including Postoperative Care of the Obese Patient, Postoperative Care of the Pancreas Transplant Patient, Optimization of High-Risk Surgical Patients, Post- erative Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome, Ethics and End of Life Issues, Improving the ICU, and Continuous Medical Education in Intensive Care Medicine. We are extremely fortunate to have high-quality contributors, many of whom are nationally and internationally recognized researchers, speakers, and practitioners in Cri- cal Care Medicine. An important feature of this latest edition is the geographical diversity of its authors. Most are based in the United States, but colleagues from Canada, England, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Italy, Portugal, and Australia have also made notable contributions.