The Master in Pediatric Intensive Care prepares to manage critically ill children, through specific skills, especially useful during emergencies. Those skills are crucial, both in hospitals without a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, and in those where this service is provided (increasingly widespread also in Italy).

The Course provides interactive EBM theoretical training, and exposure to ward activities, characterized by complex multi-specialty management of critically ill children, under the supervision of a tutor.

At the end of the course, and after passing the final exam, students will receive Second Level Master’s Degree in Pediatric Intensive Care.

The Master in Pediatric Intensive Care prepares professionals on the physiology and physiophatology of critically ill children.

Students will learn how to manage emergency situations, both in Pediatric and in Pediatric Intensive Care Units, by recognizing the signs and symptoms of a critical pediatric patients or of worsening clinical conditions, understanding the meaning of lab and instrumental examinations.

Students will have the chance to acquire knowledge on organ failure situations, and on the related vital support and procedural sedation algorithm, concerning drug usage, airway support, and adverse event monitoring and management.

Also, the course will provide independence in assessing and selecting the diagnostic and therapeutic process in critically ill children, by formulating diagnostic hypotheses and identifying the related, most appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic paths.

It will perfect the students’ communication skills within a multiprofessional team, and with the patient and the family, in emergency and complex care situations.

Lastly, it will provide cultural learning skills, through EBM sources, and by applying research on the pediatric intensive care area

The Master in Pediatric Intensive Care trains pediatrics and anesthesiologists in the pediatric intensive care sub-sector, from infants to young adults.

The professional figures trained by this Master are capable of managing critically ill pediatric patients, by identifying risk, emergency and organ failure situations, and by implementing the related treatment algorithm.

Career paths include Medical Director in the pediatric critical and semi-intensive area.

The Master in Pediatric Intensive Care provides in-depth knowledge on the following topics:

  • Analgesia and sedation of children in Pediatric Intensive Care.
  • Procedural sedation.
  • Neurology in critical situations (head trauma, brain death, electrophysiological and ultrasound monitoring).
  • Refractory epileptic state (pharmacological management, algorithms).
  • Airway management (lessons and workshop).
  • Conventional ventilation (invasive and non-invasive, in the main obstructive or restrictive respiratory failure situations, and monitoring).
  • Advanced ventilation (Nitric Oxide, high-frequency ventilation, NAVA ventilation).
  • Hemodynamic management in critical situations: understanding of physiophatological contexts in children with normal cardiac anatomy and with congenital heart disease, management of acute heart failure, management and treatment of arrhythmia, hemodynamic monitoring.
  • Management of post-cardiac surgery patients.
  • ECMO (indications for veno-arterial and veno-venous ECMO, management and weaning).
  • VAD (indications, methods, and management of extra- and intra-corporeal VAD supports)
  • Dialytic support (peritoneal, hemodialysis, and CRRT).
  • Sepsis (septic shock management, bundles to prevent hospital infections).
  • Transportation of critically ill children (stabilization, monitoring).
  • Eco-guided vascular access (lessons and workshop).
  • Point-of-care echocardiography (FOCUS, E-FAST, echography of the various areas) (lessons and workshop).
  • Ethics in intensive care (ethical dilemmas, communication, palliative sedation).

The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of the University Hospital of Padua has been certified since May 2006 according to Standard ISO 9001, then updated by ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 9001:2015, which defines the requirements to implement a quality management system, and thus improve the structure effectiveness and efficacy, and obtain and increase the users’ satisfaction.

Since 2010, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of the University Hospital of Padua is part of the TIPNET Network (Pediatric Intensive Care NETwork), patrocinated by the Società di Anestesia e Rianimazione Neonatale e Pediatrica Italiana (SARNEPI).

The Network ensures data collection through a registry of inpatients in over 25 Italian Pediatric Intensive Care Units, as the option of collaborating with multi-hub studies.

Information

Health, environment and territory
31/10/2025
80%
5
8
€ 1.672,50
€ 1.000,00
Find the admission titles in the selection notice 24/25.

FAQ

The course includes: lessons and interactive classes, hands-on skills and simulation workshops, practice, seminars, expert testimonials, internships, final exam. Attendance includes one week per month, to be agreed with the Professor. Internships will be held at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, under the direct supervision of a tutor, selected among the professors and the medical directors part of the Master faculty. There will be seminars, in-person lessons and hands-on activity in the ward, integrated with personal study.

The final exam will consist in the discussion of a dissertation, drafted under the tutor’s supervision. A mandatory attendance of 80% of the activities is required to obtain the final title.

Workshops are hands-on activities on a dummy, under the tutor’s supervision, in order to improve the student’s skills and then apply them on patients.

A degree in Medicine and Surgery, Specialization in:

  • Pediatrics
  • Anesthesiology, Reanimation, Intensive Care and Pain Therapy

The maximum number of students admitted to the Master in Pediatric Intensive Care is 8.