Before the mid-1980s, the problem of delayed defibrillation in hospitals was invisible, at least on this side of the Atlantic (there was a small program in Brighton, England). I believe that I was the major person responsible for getting the problem on the AHA's radar screen back then, as a grad student at UT Southwestern in Dallas. I brought it to the attention of several people high up in the AHA ECC hierarchy, and they were responsive at first. Later, however, I found that the AHA experts were not interested in my ideas about addressing the problem. A few years later, it became clear that their solution was AEDs in hospitals.
As I've said below, I believe that approach has been thoroughly discredited, though it will die a slow death. What is to be done? I long been more interested in exploring solutions than in pointing out the problem ( which seemed to me more a simple observation than an idea). I think I have known an effective approach to the problem for over 20 years, and a way to do a prospective, controlled study demonstrating its effectiveness for over 10 years (see link to my article below). After many obstacles and frustrations, I am continuing to try to get a study going in the Seattle area.
Open-access article in Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation, and Emergency Medicine: http://www.sjtrem.com/content/18/1/42
No comments:
Post a Comment