Fran Balamuth, MD, PhD, MSCE 

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania

Fran Balamuth MD, PhD, MSCE is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, and an attending physician in the emergency department at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  Dr. Balamuth’s research interests focus on pediatric sepsis recognition using both epidemiologic and translational approaches, for which she has received both NIH and foundational funding.   She has published over 40 peer-reviewed research publications in this field, including several studies prospectively enrolling hundreds of children with suspected sepsis.  She is the co-PI of the PROMPT BOLUS trial, a multinational pragmatic trial which compares saline vs balanced fluids in pediatric sepsis, and will be the largest acute care pediatric trial in history.   In addition, she co-leads the CHOP Pediatric Sepsis Program, which supports and promotes local clinical, research, educational, and quality improvement initiatives around sepsis. She is an internationally recognized sepsis leader, and has been invited to serve on the national steering committee for the Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes quality collaborative through the US Children’s Hospital Association, and 2 international task forces focused on defining pediatric sepsis through the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Society of Critical Care Medicine.

Mary Kate Abbadessa, MSN, ACCNS-P, RN, RN-BC, CPEN

Clinical Nurse Specialist - Emergency Department; Pediatric Sepsis Program, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Mary Kate Abbadessa is the Clinical Nurse Specialist in the Emergency Department (ED) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She completed undergraduate and graduate studies at Villanova University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master of Science in Nursing Education, as well as a Post-Master’s certificate from the Pediatric Critical Care Clinical Nurse Specialist program at the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the CHOP ED in 2009, with past experience in pre-hospital and adult emergency care, as well as pediatric PACU and neonatal nursing. Ms. Abbadessa’s clinical and research interests include the care of the child with fever, resuscitation, and trauma. Ms. Abbadessa has been the ED nursing clinical champion for sepsis since 2012, serves as the nursing lead for CHOP’s Pediatric Sepsis Program and the co-lead for the hospital’s sepsis governance committee for quality improvement. Ms. Abbadessa is an active member of the Children’s Hospital Association’s Sepsis Collaborative and a 2018 recipient of the Erin’s Campaign for Kids Nursing award for Sepsis.