Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Anesthesiology; Department of Anesthesiology; Division of Pedi
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville TN, Tennessee
Dr. Heidi A. B. Smith, MD, MSCI, FAAP, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Anesthesiology at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Dr. Smith is a member of the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction & Survivorship (CIBS) center at VUMC. She is the principle investigator of one of the largest sedation RCTs in pediatric critically ill patients looking at sedation choice and the development of ICU delirium and long-term cognitive impairment in infants and children, and social-emotional recovery of both patients and parents. Dr. Smith developed the first valid and reliable tool for assessment of ICU delirium in children, the Pediatric Confusion Assessment Method for the ICU (pCAM-ICU), and later adapted this for use in infants and toddlers, known as the Preschool CAM-ICU. Further she has numerous publications on delirium risk factors and management in this fragile population, including the recent peds PANDEM clinical guidelines, for which Dr. Smith is the lead author from the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), covering pain, agitation, delirium, iatrogenic withdrawal, neuromuscular blockade and the ICU environment. She has served as chair on numerous societal committees including at the SCCM and the American Delirium Society (ADS). Dr Smith is a current member of the Board of Directors of the American Delirium Society.
