Carol E. Nicholson, MD, MS, FAAP
National Institute of Child Health and Development, NIH, DHHS
Bethesda, Maryland

Speaker Topic
NIH/NICHD Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network

Dr. Nicholson is Director of the Pediatric Critical Care and Rehabilitation Research Program (PCCR) at the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research, National Institute of Child Health and Development, one of the National Institutes of Health. She is Project Scientist for the Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network (CPCCRN),  and holds board certification in both General Pediatrics and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.  Her professional experience includes extensive work in acute and critical care pediatrics as well as general pediatrics.  Her research interests include translating basic science findings into meaningful research and therapeutic strategies in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), and the search for prognostic outcome indicators in critically ill children, and descriptive scientific evaluation pathphysiology and psycholpathology surrounding pediatric critical illness.;  Dr. Nicholson graduated from medical school at the University of Southern California, completed a pediatric internship at Los Angeles County/ University of Southern California, pediatric residency at the University of California at San Diego, and a pediatric critical care at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles in 1999. 

Before medical school, she began her research career in genetics and birth defects, then prenatal diagnosis, and the epidemiological concerns arising from the introduction of the rubella vaccine. As well, during that time, she received an MS in child development nursing, and was instrumental in developing the Child Development Service and Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) teams.  Dr. Nicholson was one of the founders of the Interagency Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect (ICAN). Of the three research proposals written in her last year before medical school, two were funded. Her research experience has included project management of a large component of the REDS project, an NHLBI study evaluating the pathophysiology of HTLV-1 and its epidemiology in the transfusable blood supply.   After coming to the NIH in 2001, she obtained funding for and convened a national experts’ conference on “Inflicted Childhood Neurotrauma”.  This transdisciplinary conference used a modified evidence-based format, and the resultant monograph, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics was released in June, 2003.

Since coming to NICHD almost five years ago, Carol has been instrumental in obtaining major research funding set asides for pediatric critical care and rehabilitation research. The new program in pediatric critical care and rehabilitation research is designed to study all aspects of pediatric critical care with special priority for studies that provide science to improve outcomes for special needs children following serious illness and injury.  Most recently, Dr. Nicholson has been a Visiting Scientist at the Naval Medical Research Center, Combat Casualty Care Directorate/Resuscitative Medicine, studying porcine and murine models of hemorrhagic shock, under the mentorship of a molecular biologist and hematopathologist.  The immunologic, hemodynamic and coagulopathic elements of hemorrhagic shock as manifested by invasive hemodynamic monitoring are central to this work. Eventually, she would like to relate these findings to longer term outcomes in these animal models.

Carol is passionate about the need for research to provide a scientific basis for acute and critical care practice, linked to outcomes, and welcomes the opportunity to help those with the same aspirations.