This book combines valid physiology and treatment strategies with the institutional experience of one of the leading German pediatric heart centers. It is intended as a pragmatic guide, focusing on daily practice and bedside medicine: straightforward, easy to implement, and results-oriented. It offers readers a profound understanding of intensive care, with a specific focus on organ systems, their interactions, and the effect of life support technologies, pursuing a comprehensive approach to congenital heart defects and therapies, including pitfalls and solutions. The target group is extended towards pediatric cardiologists and anesthesiologists by integrating chapters on the systematic analysis of hemodynamics and anatomy, diagnostics and treatment of congenital heart defects, plus a chapter on modern anesthesiology during heart operations with a focus on early extubation that minimizes on-pump and medication trauma. As such, the book offers a pragmatic and clinically oriented guide for physicians with advanced experience and expertise in (cardiac) intensive and intermediate care, as well as beginners and junior physicians.

Dietrich Klauwer is a pediatrician, neonatologist, pediatric intensivist and pediatric cardiologist, who completed his training at Giessen University Children's Hospital and Pediatric Heart Center as well as at Munster University Pediatric Heart Center. Christoph Neuhaeuser worked as an anesthesiologist for nine years before becoming a pediatrician, neonatologist and pediatric intensivist. He was trained at the PICU at Giessen University Children's Hospital. He is currently working as a consultant for pediatric intensive care in Giessen.

Josef Thul has been trained in neonatology, pediatric intensive care and pediatric cardiology. For more than a decade, he has been the head of the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at the Children's Heart Center at Giessen University Hospital, where he is also the responsible cardiologist for the pediatric heart transplant program.

Rainer Zimmermann was trained as a pediatrician and pediatric cardiologist in Moenchengladbach, the University Hospitals of London, Oxford and Wurzburg, and the University of Giessen's Pediatric Heart Center. He joined Actelion Pharmaceuticals in 2008 as a specialist for pulmonary arterial hypertension.