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Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

The Intensive Care Unit team cares for St. Jude patients who have critical medical issues and require regular monitoring and treatment.

Intensive Care Unit entrance

The Intensive Care Unit (PICU or ICU) team at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital cares for children with medical issues that need critical care and treatment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The St. Jude ICU is special because it focuses entirely on caring for children with serious diseases such as cancer and blood disorders.

The St Jude ICU also has an early mobility program called BRAVE. This program helps patients keep moving so they can return to normal activities as soon as possible. BRAVE also helps to keep patients from developing ICU delirium (confusion, problems with thinking and attention).

Services we provide 

The Intensive Care Unit treats patients who have critical medical problems such as:

Your Intensive Care Unit team

The Intensive Care Unit team has specialized training to care for patients with complex and serious medical needs and their rehabilitation. These specialists may include:

  • Pediatric oncologists and other doctors with special training in areas such as cancer care for pediatric patients, critical care medicine, lung injury, oncology, transplant, heart function
  • Nurse practitioners with specialized training to care for ICU patients
  • Nurses who provide daily care and assessment of your child’s condition, give medicines, and help with your child’s daily care
  • Hospitalists who help care for inpatients during their stay in the hospital
  • Respiratory therapists who can help with any lung and breathing problems
  • Imaging specialists who can check on your child’s organ function and disease by taking detailed pictures inside their body
  • Child life specialists to help your family cope with the challenges of being in the hospital
  • Rehabilitation specialists such as physical or occupational therapists

The ICU team also partners with doctors at the University of Tennessee and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.

Please reach out to our ICU staff members if you or your child has a need. We will try to answer your questions and provide you with the best care possible.

What to expect in the ICU

Please review our ICU guidelines before you visit, follow these guidelines, and follow the instructions of your child’s care team.

When you arrive, your child will receive a patient armband. This helps us make sure that we can identify your child at any time and always give them the care they need.

Daily care in the ICU

Every 2 hours, and sometimes more often, your nurse or a member of the care team will come into your child’s room to take vital signs. These include:

  • Temperature
  • Blood pressure
  • Respiratory (breathing) rate
  • Heart rate (how fast the heart is beating)

We must check your child often for their medical safety. Your care team may monitor your child using audio or video equipment when our staff is not in our child’s room. Information on your child’s vital signs, such as breathing or heart function, may be collected by a patient monitor. Our staff will try to avoid waking your child when they take vital signs during the night.

The nurse will also do activities such as:

  • Take blood samples for lab work
  • Give medicine or treatments
  • Teach you or your child things you need to do for care
  • Weigh your child
  • Check how much food or liquid your child took in or put out (input and outtake)
  • Bathe your child
  • Talk with and listen to you and your child
  • Change your child’s bed linens

If your child is on a ventilator, or if they cannot easily turn over, our staff will turn your child in their bed. This will help prevent any skin issues or breakdown and to ensure your child’s comfort.

Each nurse is on the unit for 8–12 hours at a time. The ICU has a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:1.

At the end of each nursing shift, your nurse will give a full report to the next nurse about how your child is doing.

Each day doctors and/or nurse practitioner will also visit your child and discuss the plan of care.

Each day at 9 or 10 a.m., your ICU care team meets to discuss your child’s care and treatment. This is called family-centered rounds. During these meetings, the care team discusses the best plan of care and steps moving forward for your child. We encourage you to take part in these discussions and to share any questions, concerns, or things that you have noticed about your child. This information helps your child’s team plan their care. You know your child best. We welcome the chance to work with you during your child’s treatment.

How to get food and other services in the ICU

St Jude provides many inpatient services to help support your child and your family while they are in the ICU.

Room service is available for the patient and 2 caregivers. All other visitors may go to places to eat on campus, such as Kay Kafe. If your child has food allergies or dietary restrictions, Clinical Nutrition will give those details to the Food Services staff. 

Room Service hours are:

  • Monday–Friday, 7 a.m.–9 p.m.
  • Weekends and holidays, 7:30 a.m.–9 p.m.

You will get a menu so you can order meals and snacks, unless ordered not to do so by your child’s care team. Please talk with your child’s care team before you order any food for your child.

To place an order, call Room Service at 901-595-3000 (extension 3000 on a hospital phone). You may also order food through the St. Jude MyChart Bedside app on a St. Jude inpatient iPad. Your child’s meal should arrive within 45 minutes. 

You may bring food into the hospital room to eat, but please throw it away after 1 hour. 

A Nutrition Room is open 24/7. It has:

  • Food: cereal, gelatin, applesauce, crackers, soups ice cream
  • Beverages: coffee, juice, milk, ice, water
  • Condiments: ketchup, mustard
  • Microwave
  • Bowls, plates, and eating utensils

You can take anything your child would like to eat. Do not take anything that your doctors have said your child should not eat or drink.

You may also bring food and store it in the family refrigerator in the Nutrition Room. Please write your child’s name and the current date on each container. Food eaten within 3 days will be thrown away. It will be removed right away if it is spoiled.

A laundry room with a washer and dryer is available for self-service in the ICU. It is open 24 hours a day. If you need laundry detergent, tell an ICU staff member.

A waiting room is also available where you can rest and get coffee. The room has a TV and chairs for family members and visitors. The TV has videos, local and cable TV channels, and a HDMI port for gaming devices. You can access your gaming device by turning to channel 99 in your child’s ICU room. 

Please do not use TVs near bedtime as we want your child to sleep well. We want patients to rest at night, as proper sleep is important for healing. 

Volunteers will sit with children whose parents need a brief break. Sessions may last up to 2 hours. Helping Hands respite care is available Monday–Friday, 9 a.m. –9 p.m. and Saturday–Sunday, 11:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Speak with any staff member to arrange a session.

We also have a number of clinics and services on campus such as:

Learn more