Pediatric Neurology

Maine Medical Center (MMC) is home to The Barbara Bush Children's Hospital, the only children's hospital in Maine. The Barbara Bush Children's Hospital is a portal to all the pediatric services of MMC - including the pediatric subspecialties of neurology, neurosurgery, intensive care, cardiac surgery, hematology/oncology, endocrinology, infectious disease, gastroenterology, pulmonology, genetics and behavioral medicine.

MMC is Maine's only facility with two pediatric neurologists, a pediatric neurosurgeon and three epileptologists on staff. Other important programs include expertise in behavioral and developmental pediatrics, genetics, physical medicine and rehabilitation and hematology/oncology, to name a few. This means that the region's littlest patients affected by neurological illness or injury have close-to-home access to an exceptional level of diagnostic and therapeutic expertise.

A staff of pediatric hospitalists attends to the daily needs of young inpatients. The pediatric nursing staff is sensitive to the complex needs of children with neurological deficits. And, as a teaching hospital, MMC's pediatric residency program adds to the quality of care, maintaining a high level of academic excellence.

The Maine Children's Cancer Program provides integrated, comprehensive and clinical research-based medical care, and psychosocial support services to infants, children, and adolescents with cancer and blood disorders throughout the state of Maine. In addition, MMC is home to one of only two muscular dystrophy clinics in the state supported by the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The hospital also has several other specialty clinics including those dealing with spina bifida and cerebral palsy.

When infants, children or adolescents have life-threatening neurological conditions, they are cared for in the medical center's award-winning pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). This 10-bed unit provides tertiary referral and advanced care from a full team of intensivists, subspecialists and critical care nurses.

Within minutes of a call from a child's referring physician, MMC's pediatric critical care transport team, based out of the PICU, can be dispatched to provide 24/7 ground transport of critically ill infants and children within a 2 ½-hour radius of Portland. The team utilizes a specially equipped ambulance donated by the Children's Miracle Network - often referred to as an ICU on wheels.

The division director of Pediatric Neurology, Stephen Rioux, MD, serves as the associate medical director of MMC's Neuroscience Institute, further strengthening the medical center's coordinated, multidisciplinary approach to neurological care for pediatric patients.