Vanessa Nicole Madrigal, MD

Critical Care Specialist

Director, Ethics Program

Vanessa N. Madrigal, MD, MSCE, is an attending in the Division of Critical Care Medicine and the director of the Ethics Program at Children's National Hospital. 

Dr. Madrigal joined Children's National in 2014 from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in Philadelphia, PA where she was on the faculty in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine and Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. While at CHOP she conducted research in decision-making and sources of support for parents with children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and co-led a novel approach and Randomized Control Trial (RCT) investigation on standardizing an attending continuity intensivist for long-stay PICU patients. 

At Children's National, Dr. Madrigal became the official director of the Ethics Program and Chair of the Clinical Ethics Committee in June of 2019. She is building the program following the 30-year leadership of Tomas Silber, MD., and is working to expand the clinical ethics consult service and education curriculum for trainees, faculty and staff. As part of her role in Ethics, she also serves as the research subject advocate, director of the Sanford Liekin Memorial Lecture Series and serves as a member on the Board of Directors. 

Dr. Madrigal is board certified in Pediatric Critical Care medicine and General Pediatrics. She completed her medical degree at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton OH, her Pediatric Residency at Miami Children's in Miami FL, and her Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, PA. In 2017 she completed a Master of Science Degree in Clinical Epidemiology with a Bioethics concentration from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA, and a Pediatric Bioethics Certificate Program in 2019 from Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO. 

• Critical Care Medicine