Dr. Berg’s overall academic goal is to save lives of critically ill children and improve their long-term outcomes through innovative discovery, implementation science, and nurturing career development of more than 100 young faculty and trainees. As Chief of Critical Care Medicine, Dr. Berg leads an outstanding team of physician-scientists, multidisciplinary investigators, trainees, nurses, and allied healthcare professionals committed to improving outcomes of critically ill children.

Dr. Berg has been a funded laboratory and clinical resuscitation scientist for more than 30 years, focusing on CPR hemodynamics, hands-only CPR, vasopressors during CPR, post-arrest myocardial dysfunction, VF/defibrillation, in-hospital CPR, and personalized physiologic-directed CPR.  

Results from his laboratory investigations have appeared in landmark publications, in more than 350 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and in more than 40 book chapters. Dr. Berg is senior or first author of the only published randomized, controlled trial of any intervention for pediatric in-hospital cardiac arrests (NEJM 2004); the largest studies of pediatric ventricular fibrillation (NEJM 2006); three of the largest multi-center studies of in-hospital pediatric cardiac arrest (JAMA 2006, Critical Care Medicine 2013, Circulation 2019); and one of the largest studies of out-of-hospital pediatric cardiac arrests in North America (Circulation 2009). 

In addition, he is co-author of the largest U.S. studies of out-of-hospital pediatric cardiac arrests (JAMA Pediatr 2017); co-author of publications establishing excellent outcomes occur after more than 30 minutes of in-hospital CPR in adults (Lancet 2012) and children (Circulation 2013); co-author of studies demonstrating benefit of epinephrine (JAMA 2015) and dangers of tracheal intubation (JAMA 2016) during pediatric CPR; and first author of a publication establishing diastolic blood pressure targets for in-hospital pediatric CPR (Circulation 2018). 

Dr. Berg has received numerous national and international resuscitation science honors, highlighted by the 2006 AHA Lifetime Achievement Award as a Cardiac Resuscitation Scientist and the 2010 International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation’s “Giant in CPR” award.

BS, University of Michigan, 1971

MD, University of California, San Francisco, 1975

Chief, Division of Critical Care Medicine

Russell Raphaely Endowed Chair of Critical Care Medicine

American Academy of Pediatrics, 1979 -

Society of Critical Care Medicine, 1988 -

American Heart Association, 1989 -

European Resuscitation Council, Honorary Member 2019

Alpha Omega Alpha, University of California, San Francisco, 1974

Lifetime Achievement Award as Cardiac Resuscitation Scientist, American Heart Association, 2006

International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation’s “Giant in CPR” award, 2010

Asmund S. Laerdal Memorial Award, Society of Critical Care Medicine, 2012

CHOP Mentor Award, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 2014

Roger C. Bone Memorial Lectureship, American College of Chest Physicians, 2016

Shubin-Weil Master Clinician/Teacher, Society of Critical Care Medicine, 2017

Honorary Member, European Resuscitation Council, 2019