Pediatric anesthesia at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children provides a comprehensive and challenging experience. The Department's pediatric anesthesia fellows, visiting anesthesia residents, pediatric residents on elective at St. Christopher's and nurse anesthesia students are closely supervised by board-certified anesthesiologists who have specialized in both pediatric anesthesia and pediatric critical care.

More than 3,500 general anesthetics are performed each year. Half of these are administered to relatively healthy children undergoing routine surgical procedures, while the other half are administered to children with complicated medical problems. Many of them are critically ill and need major surgical procedures, including children with heart disease required open-or closed heart surgery; end-stage renal disease requiring a dialysis access site or a renal transplant; major burns requiring excision and grafting or debridement; upper airway obstruction requiring direct laryngoscopy, bronchoscopy and perhaps tracheotomy; heart or liver failure requiring transplantation; and neonates with surgical emergencies.

The Department also offers training in managing problems that occur in the recovery room, in the critical care units and resuscitation throughout the hospital.