With many of the dedicated nurses and doctors possessing more than 20 years of experience, the staff of Naval Medical Center Portsmouth's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit delivers care on par with any children's hospital in the country.

This higher level of care translates into an average nurse-to-patient ratio of one-to-one in the military's largest and busiest PICU.

That one-to-one ratio helps bring out two of the many important traits for the PICU team - passion and compassion - as the team cares for some of the medical center's most fragile patients.

"What makes the PICU unique is the personable care each nurse is able to give to the patients," said Lt. Stephanie Horigan, the PICU's division officer. "Each nurse is always within eyesight of their patient, ensuring each family knows their child is being individually cared for."

When the PICU opened in 1999, it was only the second military PICU in the country. Almost 17 years later, service members depend on the PICU to deliver state-of-the-art care for their children, a responsibility led by Dr. Abhik Biswas, the PICU's medical director.

"We started from nothing in 1999, as only the second military PICU in the country," Biswas said. "Since then, we've had a number of staff come and go, but the core is the same. We have a number of nurses who have been here the entire time as well. That all adds to the strength of the PICU."

Even with working long and often stressful hours, the PICU staff consider themselves more of a family than a group of coworkers.

"People don't see this as a place to work - they see it more as a family," Biswas said. "We have an incredible amount of dedication."

Caring for more than 400 children per year, the staff constantly works to ensure they are providing the best care possible, which includes continually educating themselves and new members of the team.

"One of my favorite things about working here is that the staff is very knowledgeable and always willing to teach and learn from each other," said Hospitalman Sydney Cook, who has been assigned to the PICU for almost two years.

A renewed sense of dedication begins with each shift change at 6:45 a.m. or p.m. After the nursing staff meets for a change of shift report, they check vital signs and assess the patients they will take care of for the next 12 hours.

"We typically take care of kids who need a little bit more care than they would need on the pediatric floor," said Lt. Jillian Schuch, former division officer of the PICU. "Our patients are sometimes ventilator dependent or have other things going on that need a little bit more care. Many of them are returning or long-term patients."

The sense of family the staff feels among themselves also extends to their patients and their families.

"Getting to know the patients and their families is probably the most rewarding part of working in the PICU," Schuch said. "We have patients we see over and over, so we really get to know them pretty well."

"For the most part, we all have kids, so when a family comes here, they know we have a similar frame of reference," Biswas said. "The PICU is here for everyone. We don't do this for ourselves, we do this for our service men and women's children."

With first-hand knowledge of his staff's capabilities, Biswas noted that if his own children were sick or injured, this is the first place he would bring them.

"When our patients come here, they're getting state-of-the-art care," Biswas added. "We're the busiest military PICU in the country. But the numbers are meaningless if the quality is not there. I can say that the care children get in this unit is equal to or greater than any children's hospital."

For more news from Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, visit www.navy.mil/local/NMCP/.