Tampa General Hospital - Medical Services

From Trauma to Rehabilitation, the Children’s Medical Center delivers specialized care tailored exclusively to pediatric patients.

Our services include:

Pediatric Emergency Care & Trauma Center

Because children are different from adults, they have their own specialized emergency room with equipment designed just for them. Our state-approved pediatric trauma referral center is staffed with physicians and nurses who specialize in pediatric emergency medicine.

As a trauma center, specialists, including pediatric surgeons and pediatric neurosurgeons, provide the highest level of trauma care for children.

Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)

This nine-bed unit is dedicated to the most critically ill or injured children. Our PICU is one of just a few statewide that provides continuous renal replacement therapies (CRRT).

Pediatric Rehabilitation

Children who have brain, spinal cord or other neurological injuries receive rehabilitation services in the Children's Medical Center. TGH is one of just three Florida Department of Health designated pediatric brain and spinal cord injury rehabilitation centers in the state. A pediatric gym equipped with child-sized rehabilitation equipment allows young rehab patients to work on developing strength, coordination, balance, and cognitive skills. The following pediatric rehabilitation programs are accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF): brain injury rehabilitation, comprehensive inpatient, interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation, and spinal cord system of care. Click here to hear Sierra’s story.

Click here to download a brochure with detailed information about Pediatric Rehabilitation Services.

Pediatric Transplantation

Established in 1983, the CMC’s kidney Transplantation program is one of just five in Florida and is the busiest in west central Florida. Our program exceeds national survival rates.

Pediatric Surgery

The CMC offers a full range of pediatric surgeries, from routine outpatient surgery to complex neurosurgery procedures, including:
• all congenital anomalies of the head, neck, thorax, abdomen, and perineum
• all solid tumors of childhood
• vascular access
• pediatric endocrine disorders
• pediatric injuries and trauma
We provide evaluation and treatment for constructive or corrective surgery to improve the appearance and/or formation of body parts affected by birth defects, injuries, disease, or abnormal growth and development.

Pediatric Dialysis

The Children’s Medical Center’s seven-bed dialysis unit provides both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis for children who require special treatment for chronic kidney problems or kidney transplants. School teachers on staff in the Children's Medical Center’s Cynthia Wells King School provide schooling for patients while they’re receiving dialysis. Social workers and dietitians specializing in pediatrics also provide services for these patients.

The CMC is one of just three CMS (Children’s Medical Services) sponsored comprehensive kidney failure centers in Florida.

Pediatric Burn Program

Children with burns and other serious skin wounds receive care within the CMC’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit from a multi-disciplinary burn care team that specializes in burn treatment. TGH is one of just four burn centers in Florida and the first burn center in the state to earn Verification by the American Burn Association/American College of Surgeons. This distinction means the center has met stringent guidelines for patient care procedures, facilities and staffing. Our burn program has also received disease specific certification from the Joint Commission.

The care of our pediatric burn patients continues at our Outpatient Hand and Burn therapy center located in South Tampa. Occupational therapists develop an individualized treatment program designed to meet the specific needs of each child. Customized pressure therapy garments are also made.

Once discharged, our pediatric patients are invited to attend Camp Hopetake, a week long summer camp for children who have survived burn injuries. Tampa General Hospital and Tampa firefighters and paramedics sponsor the camp.

Jennifer Leigh Muma Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

Premature infants and critically ill newborns are cared for in the Jennifer Leigh Muma Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Neonatologists from the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and nurses trained in neonatal critical care staff our Level III NICU. (Level III is the highest rating available.) Parents are welcome to visit their infants 24-hours a day. Tampa General is one of just 12 Regional Perinatal Intensive Care Centers designated by the State of Florida to deliver the highest level of medical care to premature and sick infants and to women with high-risk pregnancies.

Tampa General is one of just eight hospitals in Florida that provides extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a life-saving treatment for newborns with severe breathing difficulties. Similar to a heart-lung bypass machine, ECMO allows an infant’s lungs to rest and heal while the machine exchanges oxygen and carbon dioxide in the infant's blood.

Our neonatal transport team travels aboard TGH’s medical helicopters or via ambulance to provide care during transport. This team includes a registered nurse and a respiratory therapist, specially trained to stabilize and transfer sick newborns to Tampa General from other hospitals in the region.

Integrative Medicine

The Integrative Medicine Program works with pediatric patients and their families to provide relief from pain, anxiety, nausea, and stress using age-appropriate mind-body therapies. Therapies may include calming touch, soothing images, and relaxing music.

Patient Success Story

Remi Storch

Remi Storch is a lively little girl with big brown eyes, short curly brown hair, and a friendly smile. Sheloves singing, dancing, swimming, and dressing up in lace and ribbons. She’s still deciding what to be when she grows up – a dancer, an ice skater, a model, or maybe a teacher. At eight years old, this Tampa resident has plenty of time to decide.

Time, however, was not on her side in late 2005, when she began having excruciating pain in her right leg. Her parents, Catherine and Patrick Storch, took her to a local emergency room where physicians found a lump in her abdomen and recommended emergency surgery.

During this operation, surgeons made a grim discovery. The lump was cancerous. A tumor about the size of a grapefruit was wrapped dangerously around vital blood vessels and nerves in Remi’s abdomen. Thirty minutes into the surgery, the doctors closed her up and told her parents they couldn’t operate. The procedure Remi needed required a physician experienced in this type of surgery.

Remi had rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer made of cells that normally develop into skeletal muscles of the body. Rather than invading organs, these treacherous cells wrap themselves around major body structures. In Remi’s case, the rhabdomyosarcoma had developed in one of the most perilous areas to operate – right where the aorta, a major blood vessel, divides into two arteries that go to the legs. Doctors call that area “tiger country” because of the danger of operating there.

Remi’s parents conducted a national search to find the right doctor to operate on their child. They found him at Tampa General Hospital. Dr. Charles Paidas is a nationally-renowned pediatric surgeon with vast experience in rhabdomyosarcoma surgery. Dr. Paidas is Tampa General’s chief of pediatric surgery and professor of surgery and pediatrics at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

After more than three months of chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, Remi underwent surgery at Tampa General. It was Dr. Paidas’ job, with the assistance of Dr. Murray Shames, a vascular surgeon and assistant professor of surgery and radiology with USF, and a team of nurses, to completely remove the tumor without damaging the vessels and nerves that serve the surrounding organs.

The surgery lasted seven hours. Remi survived the surgery, but at that point doctors still didn’t know if the operation was a success. A month later, that question was answered: a CT scan showed the tumor was gone.
As a further precaution, Remi began a month of daily radiation therapy and went back to a weekly regimen of chemotherapy. By August, with all her treatments completed, doctors declared Remi cancer-free. Today, Remi is still under the watchful eye of her physicians, with regular checkups and full body scans. There has been no sign of a recurrence.

Now Remi can dream about a future filled with possibilities. For that, her mother thanks Tampa General and Dr. Paidas. “Dr. Paidas is the most amazing person I have ever met, and I will never, ever forget him. He saved my daughter,” Catherine says.