The Surgical Intensive Care Unit (ICU) provides exceptional care to critically ill patients undergoing vascular, orthopedic, urologic, gynecology-obstetric, thoracic, transplant, and general surgery interventions.

The Surgical Intensive Care Unit, located in the Guggenheim Pavilion, is a 14-bed closed ICU staffed by full-time, board certified critical care physicians. The attending physicians provide direct supervision of care at all times, with coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in compliance with Leapfrog guidelines. Annually, over 800 patients receive care in the surgical ICU.

The physicians are supported by additional members of the care team, including critical care fellows, residents from surgical and anesthesia residency programs, and advanced practice providers. More than 70 Critical Care Registered Nurse-certified nursing staff provide bedside care for patients.

The team in the Surgical ICU proactively works toward delivering care in a multidisciplinary approach. This includes daily rounds with staff from other services such as respiratory therapy, pharmacy, nutrition, rehabilitation and occupational therapy, social work services, chaplaincy, case management, and palliative care services.

Evidence-Based Care

Given the complexity of care and severity of illness among patients in the ICU, a special emphasis is placed on providing comprehensive care and support for patients and families through the use of evidence-based protocols.

This includes:

• Rapid weaning pathways to ensure patients receive daily ventilator weaning protocols to aid in early and sustained liberation from the ventilator.
• Daily social work and palliative care rounds to understand individual patient needs and to organize meetings to update and inform patients and families of care plans.
• Dedicated physical therapy and occupational therapy with daily goals for mobilization and conditioning.
• Dedicated nutritionist to identify nutritional needs, early identification of need for parenteral nutrition, and managing parenteral nutrition formulation.
• ICU-led bedside percutaneous tracheostomy services to support patients with long-term ventilator requirements.
• ICU-led continuous veno-venous hemofiltration therapy for patients who are unable to tolerate regular hemodialysis support due to their critical illness.

Critical Care Research

The Surgical ICU serves as a center of excellence for ongoing leading-edge research trials. The ICU has clinical research coordinators who work in collaboration with faculty to ensure that trials are conducted in compliance with institutional guidelines and patient safety standards. Trials include investigation of trial drugs and drug delivery modalities, biomedical devices, and novel diagnostic techniques.

Critical Care Education

The Surgical ICU serves as one of the core rotations for the Critical Care Medicine Fellowship at The Mount Sinai Hospital. The fellowship stands among the oldest and largest critical care fellowships in the world and has been training leaders, researchers, and clinical intensivists for more than four decades.

Additionally, the ICU provides training for rotating residents, medical students, and advanced practice providers through supervised procedural skill training, lecture series, and clinical didactics.