Kusum Menon

Dr. Menon completed her M.D. at the University of British Columbia in 1989, her Pediatric Critical Care training in 1996 and a Master’s degree in Epidemiology in 2000. She is a senior investigator at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and Vice-Chair of the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group. Her research focuses on adrenal insufficiency, consent for research and pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) resource utilization.

Her work on adrenal insufficiency has included defining the issue in a large critically ill patient population, surveying clinicians’ perceptions of the problem, conducting a systematic review of the literature, and completion of a pilot randomized controlled trial of steroids versus a placebo in pediatric septic shock. The final goal of this program is to inform the development of guidelines on the use of steroids in children with septic shock. Dr. Menon’s work on the research consent process has focused on exploring alternative consent models in the pediatric critical care setting, with the goal of identifying and addressing barriers to obtaining informed consent using an evidence-based approach. Finally, her work on PICU resource utilization aims to develop a model for PICU resource utilization for use as a template for economic evaluations in future PICU trials.

Presently, Dr. Menon is the lead investigator for an international randomized controlled clinical trial of stress hydrocortisone in pediatric septic shock (SHIPSS study, www.shipss.org). This study combines her three research interests by including sub-studies on deferred versus prior informed consent and development of a PICU cost model.