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Pediatric emergency medicine

Guest Editors:
Stephen Hearps, AProf: Murdoch Children's Research Institute and The University of Melbourne, Australia
Sriram Ramgopal, MD: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, United States


BMC Emergency Medicine welcomed submissions to its Collection on Pediatric emergency medicine. Topics of interest included pediatric trauma, sepsis, poisonings, toxicology, airway management, and cardiac emergencies. We were also interested in submissions that cover the latest advances in the field, the challenges of providing care to children in the emergency department, and the impact of emergencies on the health of children.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Stephen Hearps: Murdoch Children's Research Institute and The University of Melbourne, Australia

Associate Professor Stephen Hearps (MBiostat) is a Data Scientist/Biostatistician with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Australia, and Principal Fellow at the Department of Critical Care, University of Melbourne, Australia. His primary research area is pediatric illness/injury (primarily pediatric brain injury, concussion, stroke, ED presentation, and mental health), with a focus on analysis and translation of epidemiology and social and mental health outcomes of children and adolescents. He is an author of over 170 peer-reviewed papers, with 5000+ citations.

Sriram Ramgopal: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, United States

Sriram Ramgopal is a clinician in pediatric emergency medicine within the division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Dr Ramgopal is interested in data science, predictive modelling, and artificial intelligence approaches in the pediatric acute care setting. Dr Ramgopal has research focuses which include the diagnosis of pediatric community-acquired pneumonia, improving the care of children by emergency medical services, and the risk stratification of hypothermic infants.

About the Collection

BMC Emergency Medicine is welcoming submissions to its Collection on Pediatric emergency medicine. In general, most medical emergencies fall into one of four categories: respiratory issues, gastrointestinal issues, trauma injuries and infections. The challenges of treating these emergencies in young people, whether that be infants, children, or adolescents, are often due to the physiological, developmental and emotional requirements of these pediatric patients compared to adults.   

With this in mind, this Collection seeks to explore the rapidly evolving landscape of pediatric emergency care, showcasing new diagnostic tools, innovative treatment approaches, and enhanced clinical management of common and rare emergencies in young people. 

We invite submissions from all aspects of this developing field including, but not limited to:

  • Advances in pediatric trauma care and management 
  • Pediatric toxicology: Emerging threats and management 
  • Innovations in pediatric emergency imaging 
  • Pediatric infectious diseases in the emergency setting 
  • Pain and sedation management in pediatric emergencies 
  • Point-of-care testing and rapid diagnostics in pediatrics
  • Mental health emergencies: Approaches and challenges
  • Pediatric resuscitation: Best practices and recent advances
  • Ethical challenges in pediatric emergency care
  • Technological advancements in pediatric emergency care


Image credit: reewungjunerr / stock.adobe.com

  1. Adolescents’ emergency department (ED) presentations are multi-faceted. However, patient characteristics and chief complaints associated with severe outcomes, particularly sex differences, remain underexplored...

    Authors: Mei-Wen Wang and Jiun-Hau Huang
    Citation: BMC Emergency Medicine 2025 25:81
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. In February 2024, the South Korean government announced a 67% increase in medical school admissions (2,000 more students), leading to the resignation of approximately 10,000 residents from major university hos...

    Authors: Arum Choi, Beom Joon Kim, Jooyoung Lee, Sukil Kim and Woori Bae
    Citation: BMC Emergency Medicine 2025 25:39
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Paediatric mortality rates in low- and middle-income countries account for over 80% of the global burden. In South Africa, one in every 33 children will not reach the age of five. Despite the high mortality ra...

    Authors: Naseef Abdullah, Naqeeb Majiet and Simpiwe Sobuwa
    Citation: BMC Emergency Medicine 2024 24:234
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. During resuscitation in emergency situations, establishing intravascular access is crucial for promptly initiating delivery of fluids, blood, blood products, and medications. In cases of emergency, when intrav...

    Authors: Tim W.H. Rijnhout, Marin Kieft, Willemijn M. Klein and Edward C.T.H. Tan
    Citation: BMC Emergency Medicine 2024 24:192
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. Children presenting to the emergency department (ED) often require procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA) prior to procedures. Although ketamine is used widely for PSA safely, there is a risk of adverse effec...

    Authors: Elham Mahmoodi, Seyed Hossein Seyed Hosseini Davarani, Sarah Yang, Mohammad Jalili, Shabnam Mohammadian and Hadi Mirfazaelian
    Citation: BMC Emergency Medicine 2024 24:182
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure performed to restore heart function to minimize anoxic injury to the brain following cardiac arrest.

    Authors: Deogratius Mally, Ruth Namazzi, Philippa Musoke, Deogratias Munube, Tonny Stone Luggya and Hendry R. Sawe
    Citation: BMC Emergency Medicine 2024 24:178
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select Pediatric emergency medicine from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.