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Our Recent ED ECMO article in Journal of Emergency Medicine

  Check out this link to the full article from our recent Emergency Physician initiated ECMO cohort https://www.jem-journal.com/article/S0736-4679(19)30057-5/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR2yiup48NSVCKXQ9xv8ycJR6Ub2NnFB1Wuu4BagtR498O1dl9GlF0l3xAg

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54: Confirmation of Wire Placement with Sacha Richardson

In this episode, Sacha Richardson talks with Zack about a problem common to all ECPR programs- how do we confirm the placement of the wires?  During chest compressions and even in patients with a pulse, confirmation of which vessel you have cannulated can be difficult.  Sacha shares some tricks and trips on how to get real time confirmation of the wires.  Sacha also gives us a preview of some of the exciting endeavors that he has undertaken in Melbourne with pre-hospital ECMO.

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53b: Resuscitationist Inserted Distal Perfusion Catheter with Chris Couch

In this episode, we again explore the world of the distal perfusion catheter.  You heard from Joe Dubose the vascular surgeons point of view; now let’s see how non-surgeon resuscitationists are dealing with this problem.  You will hear from Chris Couch, a critical care trained emergency physician from Dallas Texas and his colleague Omar Hernandez who have some novel thoughts and experiences related to when and how we insert these catheters.  You will hear about checking compartment pressures, poor man’s way to “fluoro” your catheter, and much more.

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53: Distal Perfusion Catheter with Joe Dubose

Episode 53 is all about the distal perfusion catheter12.  We are inserting a 15-19 Fr catheter into the femoral artery.  This limits the flow of blood to the affected extremity.  Many institutions have gone to mandatory distal perfusion catheters.  This episode is all about those catheters – when, how, which, and where.  Joe Dubose, the world reknown vascular and trauma surgeon, joins us to discuss the details of this important piece of post pump initiation.

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52: Brain Freeze- Selective Retrograde Cerebral Perfusion for Intra-Arrest Neuroprotection

We’ve all heard of therapeutic hypothermia.  Some of us have heard of deep hypothermia for traumatic arrest.  But what about deep regional hypothermia of brain for cardiac arrest!  Zack interviewed Rob Schultz, a CT surgeon resident from Calgary who is doing research on deep hypothermia of the brain using some of the tactics that are utilized in operating room.  His stuff is mind blowing!

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51 – Proximal Balloon Occlusion for Cardiac Arrest

 You’ve heard of ECMO for cardiac arrest- utilizing a mechanical pump to aid in perfusion of the coronaries.  What if you can’t do ECMO?  What if your resources are such that simply can’t lug a 10 kilogram machine out into the field?  Well, Jostein Brede may have something for you to consider.  He and several other places worldwide are on the forefront of using a REBOA catheter to occlude the proximal aorta during chest compressions in hopes that coronary perfusion pressure increases.  This would subsequently improve chance of return of spontaneous circulation and overall survivorship.  Maybe this is the band-aid that can be used in austere environments like rural Norway where the temperatures are extreme, the people are sparse, but the physicians are motivated.

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50b Inter-Facility Transport of ECMO patients Part 2 of 2

This is part 2 of Transport of ECMO patients.  Mikael Broman is one of the world’s leaders on ECMO transport.  He works at the Karolinska institute in Sweden and has and continues to publish in the arena of ECMO transport.  As you will see, he offers a world of experience and certainly some critical information that we would all benefit from listening to.  I’m a smarter ECMO-tologist as a result of Micke!

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50a Inter-facility Transport of ECMO patients Part 1 of 2

This month we are looking at how to transport patients from one facility to another on ECMO.  This is difficult task full of potential catastrophes.  Zack interviews Leon Eydelman, an ER/Critical Care physician from Chicago, and Michael Broman out of Karolinska in Sweden.  Leon will be bringing us up to speed on what to do, potential fails, and how to start the process of setting up a transport process for ECMO patients.  Dr. Eydelman will be teaching a new section at Reanimate this January specifically geared toward the transport of patients.  So if you are a nurse, medic, perfusionist, RT, or physician involved in the transport of ECMO patients you will not want to miss Leon’s section  Sign up at Reanimateconference.com.  Part 2 of this podcast includes the interview with Dr. Broman which will blow your mind.  So much great stuff in both of these interviews.

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NEW PAPER: Extracorporeal Life Support in the Emergency Department: A Narrative Review for the Emergency Physician

Pulmonary Critical Care guru Justyna Swol from Nuremberg, Germany invited Scott, Zack and me to co-author this paper along with several other ECLS experts.   Just published in the Journal Resuscitation, this is a great overview of Emergent ECLS(AKA ECPR) from the point of view of the Emergency and Critical Care specialist.

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49 – You Can’t Spell REBOA without the ER – Endovascular Resuscitation of the Trauma Patient – Zaf Qasim

n this episode, Zack Shinar interviews Zaf Qasim about the recent controversies with ACEP and ACS about who can do REBOA.  Zaf is one of the world’s experts on REBOA and he’s an ER doc!  Zaf works at the University of Pennsylvania, trained in London

as well as Shock Trauma in Baltimore and teaches at Reanimate.  When you come to the essence of this episode, the question is what is the emergency physician’s role in the trauma resuscitation?  Both Zaf and Zack agree; we need to be the resuscitationist in the trauma suite.  We need to manage the airway and then quickly take over the arterial and venous access, interpret the transduced pressures, manage the massive transfusion protocol and be ready to insert the REBOA catheter while the trauma surgeon is involved with the left chest, the source of bleeding and where the next destination for this patient will be.

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