When Dr. Niveditha Balakumar arrived in San Antonio, she only planned to stay for a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was July 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she arrived to start work at Christus Children\u2019s Hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI told myself, I\u2019m going to give myself one year here,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Five years later, she\u2019s still caring for San Antonio\u2019s sickest children, with no plans to leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see myself moving anywhere anytime soon,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Balakumar came to Texas after stops on the East Coast: She completed medical school in India, then pediatrics residency in New York City and a fellowship in critical care in Miami.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She chose pediatrics because she likes seeing patients from newborns and toddlers to teenagers, \u201calmost like you\u2019re growing up with them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the medical director of the hospital\u2019s pediatric intensive care unit, Balakumar is seeing children \u2014and their families \u2014 in their most challenging moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey come in extremely sick and fragile and vulnerable,\u201d she said. \u201cYou make decisions in a matter of moments and seconds that change the entire course of a child\u2019s life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u2019s also focused on constantly improving the care children receive by reviewing data and implementing changes with her team.<\/p>\n
One of those projects is part of a nationwide critical care initiative, aimed at aiding patients\u2019 recovery and transition out of intensive care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe patient comes to the ICU, and oftentimes we don\u2019t know how much life alters after their stay in the ICU,\u201d Balakumar said. To address that, the project includes assessing medication, rehabilitation efforts, early mobility exercises and other efforts during their stay that can help patients after they leave.<\/p>\n
Balakumar is also the medical director of the hospital\u2019s All Kidz Transport program, which works to safely move children to receive specialized care.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn simple words, it\u2019s like a mobile ICU,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An ongoing focus is working to transport patients that are using heart-lung machines for a treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or \u201cECMO.\u201d<\/p>\n
The machine pumps blood outside the body to do the work of the heart and lungs. Christus is working to provide mobile ECMO \u2014 transporting children while they\u2019re undergoing the treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited for that to roll out,\u201d Balakumar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Seeing kids in bed connected to those kinds of machines and tubes is \u201cone of the hardest things you can see,\u201d she said \u2014 but in those moments, she\u2019s often thinking about their lives outside the hospital room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Parents often decorate their children\u2019s rooms with pictures from when they were healthy, which serve as a visual reminder of what the ICU team is working toward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s see how we can get that child better, to get that smile back again, so they can go home with their family,\u201d Balakumar said. \u201cThat\u2019s the one thing that keeps me and all of my team members going, is working toward getting that child home.\u201d<\/p>\n
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