Ericka L. Fink, MD, MS

  • Professor of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
  • Associate Director, Safar Center for Resuscitation Research
  • Research Director, PCCM fellowship
  • Director, Critical Illness Recovery for ChiLdrEn (CIRCLE) program

Ericka Fink, MD, MS is a Professor of Critical Care Medicine, Pediatrics, and Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is an attending physician in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and Director of the Critical Illness Recovery for ChiLdrEn (CIRCLE) program. She is Associate Director of the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research and PICU Fellowship Research Director. Dr. Fink's research is focused on pediatric cardiac arrest prognostication and outcomes and recovery of children with critical illness and their families. Dr. Fink is the Principal Investigator on the NIH-funded multicenter POCCA (Personalizing Outcomes after Pediatric Cardiac Arrest) study and Co-Investigator for her site’s participation in the NICHD Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network (CPCCRN).    

Professional and Scientific Society Memberships

  • Pennsylvania Medical Society, 1995-2008                                                                                                                         
  • American Academy of Pediatrics, 1999-2012                                                                                                           
  • Society of Critical Care Medicine, 2002-Present                                                                                                          
  • Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators Network (PALISI), 2007-Present                            
  • American Heart Association, 2007-Present                                                                                                                     
  • Neurocritical Care Society, 2008-Present                                                                                                                       
  • International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2008-2011                                    
  • Pediatric Neurocritical Care Research Group (PNCRG), 2010-Present                                             
  • PNCRG Liaison to PALISI, 2011-2018

Education & Training

  • BS, Syracuse University, 1992
  • MS, Thomas Jefferson University, 1995
  • MD, Jefferson Medical College, 1999

Selected Publications

Wood GK, Thakur KT, Bharambe V, Chomba M, Garcia-Azorin D, Prasad K, Souza MNP, Cou SHY, Roa JD, Fink EL, Hoo FK, Siddiqi OK, Solomon T, Winkler AS, Michael BD. The global brain health clinical exchange platform: Translating concepts to collaborations. J Neuro Sci. 3;442:120447, 2022. PMID: 36257124

Berg RA, Morgan RW, Reeder RW, Ahmed T, Bell MJ, Bishop R, Bochkoris M, Burns C, Carcillo JA, Carpenter TC, Dean JM, Diddle JW, Federman M, Fernandez R, Fink EL, Franzon D, Frazier AH, Friess SH, Graham K, Hall M, Hehir D, Horvat CM, Huard LL, Maa T,  Manga A, McQuillen PS, Meert KL, Mourani PM, Nadkarni VM, Naim MY, Notterman D, Palmer CA, Pollack MM, Schneiter C, Sapru A, Sharron MP, Siems A, Srivastava N, Tabbutt S, Tilford B, Viteri S, Wessel D, Wolfe H, Yates AR, Zuppa AF, Sutton RM. Diastolic Blood Pressure Threshold during Pediatric CPR and Survival Outcomes: a Multicenter Validation Study. Critical Care Medicine. 51(1):91-102, 2023. PMID: 36519983

Jarvis JM* (co-first), Roy J*, Schmithorst V, Lee V, Devine D, Meyers B, Munjal N, Clark RSB, Kochanek PM, Panigrahy A, Ceschin R**, Fink EL** (co-senior). Limbic pathway vulnerability associates with neurologic outcome in children after cardiac arrest. Resuscitation. 182:109634, 2023. PMID: 36336196

Owolabi MO*, Leonardi M*, Bassetti C, Jaarsma, Hawrot T, Makanjuola AI, Dhamija RK, Feng W, Straub V, Camaradou J, Dodick DW,  Sunna R, Menon B,  Wright C, Lynch C, Chadha AS, Ferretti MT, Dé A, Catsman-Berrevoets CE, Gichu M, Tassorelli C, Oliver D, Paulus W,  Mohammed RK, Charway-Felli A, Rostasy K, Feigin V, Craven A, Cunningham E, Galvin O, Perry AH, Fink EL, Baneke P, Helme A, Laurson-Doube J, Medina MT, Roa JD, Hogl B, O’Bryan A, Trenkwalder C, Wilmshurst J, Akinyemi RO, Yaria JO, Good DC, Hoemberg V, Boon P, Wiebe S, Cross JH, Haas M, Jabalpurwala I, Mojasevic M, DiLuca M, Barbarino P, Clarke S, Zuberi SM, Olowoyo P, Owolabi A, Oyesiku N, Maly-Sundgren PC, Norrving B, van Doorn PA, Lewis R, Solomon T, Servadei F. Global synergistic actions to improve brain health for human development. Nature Reviews Neurology. 19(6):371-383, 2023. PMID: 37208496

Jarvis JM, Hungtington T, Perry G, Zickmund S, Yang S, Galyean P, Pinto N, Watson RS, Olson LM, Fink EL, Maddux AB. J Child Health Care. Online ahead of print. PMID: 36749657

Cashen K, Sutton RM, Reeder RW, Ahmed T, Bell MJ, Berg RA, Burns C, Carcillo JA, Carpenter TC, Dean JM, Diddle JW, Federman M, Fink EL, Franzon D, Frazier AH, Friess SH, Graham K, Hall M, Hehir DA, Horvat CM, Huard LL, Kirkpatrick NT, Maa T, Manga A, McQuillen PS, Morgan RW, Mourani PM, Nadkarni VM, Naim MY, Notterman D, Page K, Pollack MM, Qunibi D, Sapru A, Schneiter C, Sharron MP, Srivastava N, Viteri S, Wessel D, Wolfe HA, Yates AR, Zuppa AF, Meert KL. Calcium use during paediatric in-hospital cardiac arrest is associated with worse outcomes. Resuscitation. Online ahead of print. PMID: 36565948

Morgan RW, Reeder RW, Ahmed T, Bell MJ, Berger JT, Bishop R, Bochkoris M, Burns C, Carcillo JA, Carpenter TC, Dean JM, Diddle JW, Federman M, Fernandez R, Fink EL, Franzon D, Frazier AH, Friess SH, Graham K, Hall M, Hehir DA, Himebauch AS, Horvat CM, Huard LL, Maa T, Manga A, McQuillen PS, Meert KL, Mourani PM, Nadkarni VM, Naim MY, Notterman D, Page K, Pollack MM, Sapru A, Schneiter C, Sharron MP, Srivastava N, Tabbutt S, Tilford B, Viteri S, Wessel D, Wolfe HA, Yates AR, Zuppa AF, Berg RA, Sutton RM. Outcomes and characteristics of cardiac arrest in children with pulmonary hypertension: A secondary analysis of the ICU-RESUS clinical trial. Resuscitation. Online ahead of print. PMID: 37406760

The physiologic response to epinephrine and pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation outcomes. Morgan RW, Berg RA, Reeder RW, Carpenter TC, Franzon D, Frazier AH, Graham K, Meert KL, Nadkarni VM, Naim MY, Tilford B, Wolfe HA, Yates AR, Sutton RM; ICU-RESUS and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network Investigator Groups. Crit Care. 2023 Mar 13;27(1):105. PMID: 36915182

Fink EL, Kochanek PM, Beers SR, Clark RRSB, Berger RP, Bayir H, Topjian AA, Newth C, Press C, Maddux AB, Willyerd F, Hunt EA, Siems A, Chung MG, Smith L, Doughty L, Diddle JW, Patregnani J, Piantino J, Walson KH, Balakrishnan B, Meyer MT, Friess S, Pineda J, Maloney D, Rubin P, Haller TL, Treble-Barna A, Wang C, Lee V, Wisnowski JL, Subramanian S, Narayanan S, Blüml S, Fabio A, Panigrahy A; POCCA Investigators. Assessment of Brain Magnetic Resonance and Spectroscopy Imaging Findings and Outcomes After Pediatric Cardiac Arrest. JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Jun 1;6(6):e2320713. PMID: 37389874

Cheung C, Kernan KF, Berg RA, Zuppa AF, Notterman DA, Pollack MM, Wessel D, Meert KL, Hall MW, Newth C, Lin JC, Doctor A, Shanley T, Cornell T, Harrison RE, Banks RK, Reeder RW, Holubkov R, Carcillo JA, Fink EL; Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network. Acute Disorders of Consciousness in Pediatric Severe Sepsis and Organ Failure: Secondary Analysis of the Multicenter Phenotyping Sepsis-Induced Multiple Organ Failure Study. Pediatr Crit Care Med. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37314247

Academic and Research Interests

  • Pediatric Critical Care
  • Neurocritical Care
  • Long term outcomes and recovery
  • Cardiac arrest
  • Family centered outcomes
  • Biomarkers
  • Brain MRI
  • Prognostication

Research Grants

NICHD K23HD106011, “Music listening interventions for children receiving mechanical ventilation: A mechanistic trial”, 2022-2027

NIH (NHLBI) 1UG3HL159134, Pediatric Influence of Cooling duration on Efficacy in Cardiac Arrest Patients (P-ICECAP), 2021-2026

NIH (NICHD) 1RL1HD107779, Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network - Clinical Site, 2021-July 2026

NIH (NIHCD) 1K01HD097030-01A1, “Epigenetic influences on neurobehavioral recovery following pediatric traumatic brain injury”, 2019-Aug 2024

CHP Foundation: Mike and Ann Popper family, Critical Illness Recovery for ChiLdrEn (CIRCLE) clinical and QA program, 2020-2026

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