Programs and Centers

Clinical Expertise

Centers of Excellence

Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation 

The Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Program at Johns Hopkins Children's Center provides critical support for infants and children with a life-threatening illness or injury. ECMO is a life-saving heart and lung bypass system that takes over the functions of these organs, allowing physicians time to diagnose and treat critically ill or injured children and enabling their organs to heal.

The multidisciplinary ECMO team consists of highly trained respiratory therapists, perfusionists and intensivists. These specialists, along with other caregivers, treat patients receiving ECMO in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at the Hopkins Children’s Center.

ECMO Staff

Ivor D Berkowitz, M.B.B.Ch.

  • Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine
  • Professor of Pediatrics

Expertise: Anesthesiology, Critical Care Medicine, Interventional Pain Management

Research Interests: Ethics of brain death determination, Anesthetic implications of dwarfism, Pathophysiology of the intracranial vault in bacterial meningitis.

ECMO Contact Information

Gary Oldenburg, R.R.T., coordinator: 410-614-4591 
PICU: 410-955-5260
Fax: 410-614-7441