Ricardo Muñoz, M.D., serves as division chief of cardiac critical care medicine, executive director of telemedicine for Children’s National Hospital, and co-director of the Children’s National Heart Center. He oversees a multidisciplinary team consisting of critical care nurse practitioners and nurses, respiratory and physical therapist, nutritionists, social workers and pharmacists. In addition, he is an expert clinician, bedside physician and teacher.
Prior to joining Children’s National, Dr. Muñoz was at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, where he founded the first pediatric critical care unit. During his 15-year tenure at UPMC, Dr. Muñoz served as the head of the division of pediatric cardiac intensive care, director of international affairs for the Heart Institute, and became medical director for Global Business and Telemedicine. Previously, Dr. Muñoz successfully established the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit at the University of Miami (Jackson Memorial Hospital) where he served as its first director.
Dr. Muñoz is a leading authority internationally known for his contributions to pediatric cardiac intensive care and telemedicine, having provided nearly 4,000 consultations globally. He has written three major textbooks in the field of cardiac critical care medicine and has been the visiting professor or plenary speaker at nearly 200 venues around the world. Dr. Muñoz has published extensively on the care and outcomes of critically ill patients and is the senior author of several important articles and publications. He is also the senior editor of “Handbook of Pediatric Cardiovascular Drugs,” and “Critical Care of Children with Heart Disease, Basic Medical and Surgical Concepts,” also translated into Spanish with wide distribution in Latin America. He currently serves as a professor of pediatrics at The George Washington University School of Medicine and is the MacCutcheon Family professor of cardiac critical care medicine.
Dr. Muñoz graduated from University del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia with a medical degree, and completed his training in pediatrics at Hospital Militar in Bogotá, Colombia. Later he joined Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School to pursue fellowships in anesthesia and pediatric critical care. He continued his cardiology fellowship training at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Muñoz is board-certified in pediatrics, pediatric cardiology and pediatric cardiac critical care medicine.