Dr. Erika Montalvo is a pediatric intensivist with 15 years of experience in the field of pediatric haemato-oncology critical care. Montalvo is a pediatric critical care consultant at Hospital de los Valles, head of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Solca Hospital, and Professor of Pediatric Critical Care at Universidad Central del Ecuador and Universidad San Francisco de Quito all in Ecuador. She is also vice president of the Ecuadorian Pediatric Critical Care Society.
Montalvo’s early work was dedicated to working with pediatric patients and pregnant women which helped her realize the scope of the healthcare challenges that exist in Ecuador. Diagnosing and treating her first oncology patient was a transformative experience that led to her decision to become a pediatrician and later a pediatric intensivist for haemato-oncological patients.
Montalvo earned her medical degree from Universidad Central del Ecuador in 2004 and completed her fellowship in Pediatrics from Universidad Internacional del Ecuador in 2007. After working as a pediatrician in the field of onco-critical care for five years, she was honored with a Scholar Fellowship for Excellence, sponsored by the Ecuadorian Government and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. The fellowship enabled her to continue her training due the lack of pediatric intensivists in Ecuador.
Montalvo has previously worked with researchers from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital through Proyecto EVAT, an effort to implement Pediatric Early Warning Systems as supportive care intervention in her hospital and other centers of South and Central America. Through the collaboration the researchers showed that PEWS improved quality of care measurements and Montalvo began to take part in international studies as an investigator.
Montalvo hopes that the Master’s in Global Child Health from St. Jude will help her set the standard for excellence in early diagnosis of critical deterioration across hospitals in Ecuador, providing early interventions and transport for critical care patients.
Hometown: Quito, Ecuador
Education
Pediatric Critical Care Degree – Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (2016)
Pediatrics Degree – Universidad Internacional del Ecuador (2009)
Medical Degree – Universidad Central del Ecuador (2004)
Publications
Asya Agulnik , Sara Malone , Maria Puerto-Torres, Alejandra Gonzalez-Ruiz, Yuvanesh Vedaraju, Huiqi Wang, Dylan Graetz , Kim Prewitt, Cesar Villegas,Adolfo Cardenas-Aguierre, Carlos Acuna, Ana Edith Arana,Rosdali Díaz, Silvana Espinoza, Karla Guerrero, Angélica Martínez, Alejandra Mendez, Erika Montalvo, Dora Soberanis, Antonella Torelli, Janeth Quelal, Erika Villanueva, Meenakshi Devidas, Douglas Luke, Virginia McKay. Reliability and validity of a Spanish-language measure assessing clinical capacity to sustain Paediatric Early Warning Systems (PEWS) in resource-limited hospitals. Open BMJ 2021.
Carl Otto Schell, Karima Khalid, Alexandra Wharton-Smith ,Jacquie Oliwa , Hendry R Sawe, Nobhojit Roy, Alex Sanga, John C Marshall, Jamie Rylance, Claudia Hanson,Raphael K. Kayambankadzanja , Lee A Wallis,Maria Jirwe ,Tim Baker , Erika Montalvo, as part of The EECC Collaborators. Essential Emergency and Critical Care: a consensus among global clinical experts, BMJ Global Health, 2021
Asya Agulnik MD, MPH,Adolfo Cárdenas MD, Angela K. Carrillo PhD, Purva Bulsara MPH, Marcela Garza MD, Yvania Alfonso Carreras MD, Manuel Alvarado MD, Patricia Calderón MD, Rosdali Díaz MD, Claudia de León MD, Claudia del Real MD, Tania Huitz RN, Angélica Martínez MD, Scheybi Miralda MD, Erika Montalvo MD, Octavia Negrín MD, Alejandra Osuna RN, Clara Krystal Perez Fermin MD, Estuardo Pineda MD, Dora Soberanis RN, Maria Susana Juárez Tobias MD, Zhaohua Lu PhD, Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo MD, EVAT Study Group. Clinical and organizational risk factors for mortality during deterioration events among pediatric oncology patients in Latin America: A multicenter prospective cohort. Cancer 2021.