Book excerpt: This book combines valid physiology and treatment strategies with the institutional experience of one of the leading German pediatric heart centers. It is intended as a pragmatic guide, focusing on daily practice and bedside medicine: straightforward, easy to implement, and results-oriented. It offers readers a profound understanding of intensive care, with a specific focus on organ systems, their interactions, and the effect of life support technologies, pursuing a comprehensive approach to congenital heart defects and therapies, including pitfalls and solutions. The target group is extended towards pediatric cardiologists and anesthesiologists by integrating chapters on the systematic analysis of hemodynamics and anatomy, diagnostics and treatment of congenital heart defects, plus a chapter on modern anesthesiology during heart operations with a focus on early extubation that minimizes on-pump and medication trauma. As such, the book offers a pragmatic and clinically oriented guide for physicians with advanced experience and expertise in (cardiac) intensive and intermediate care, as well as beginners and junior physicians.