As a Level I Trauma Center, UF Health Shands Hospital has earned a reputation for providing care in the most extreme situations. Our all-encompassing patient care model ensures that we provide children and their families with the medical education, care and support they need and rely on at every step of the process.

Pediatric intensive care unit

The first Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, or PICU, in Florida was established in 1967 at what is now UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital. The current 24-bed, medical-surgical PICU was renovated in 2014 and features a Ronald McDonald family lounge, as well as a shared family waiting area with the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit. The pediatric intensivists at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital treat patients from birth to 21 years old. Our unit’s primary coverage area includes North Central Florida and South Georgia.

The PICU supports a Level I pediatric trauma center and all pediatric medical and surgical subspecialties. It has an active extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, program and provides advanced medical technologies, including continuous renal replacement therapies, high frequency ventilation and inhaled nitric oxide.

Medical subspecialties include:

• Cardiology
• Endocrinology
• Gastroenterology
• Genetics and metabolism
• Hematology-oncology
• Infectious disease
• Nephrology
• Neurology
• Pulmonology
• Rheumatology

Surgical subspecialties include:

• Congenital/pediatric cardiac surgery
• General pediatric surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Orthopaedics
• Otolaryngology
• Transplant services: heart, lung and kidney
• Trauma services

Gainesville resources

• Admissions at UF Health Shands Hospital
• Child-Life Program at UF Health
• Conditions and treatments
• Clinical Trials
• Cancer Survivorship: (352) 273-9120

• Admissions at UF Health Jacksonville
• Child-Life Program at UF Health Jacksonville