HEMS Debrief - Cardiac Arrest Focus #22, Prof Sheldon Cheskes - Defibrillation Strategies for Refractory Ventricular Fibrillation

G'day and welcome back to the HEMS debrief podcast.

We are back with part one of a two part episode with Professor Sheldon Cheskes from Toronto, Canada. Sheldon is a Professor of Emergency Medicine by trade, a clinical scientist and a medical director for ambulance services within the Canadian province of Ontario.

Perhaps, though, Sheldon is best known for his work as the principal investigator in the 'Dose VF' study, during which Sheldon and the team demonstrate the effectiveness of double sequential external defibrillation (DSED; rapid sequential shocks from two defibrillators) and vector-change (VC) in patients suffering from shock refractory ventricular fibrillation. This ground-breaking out-of-hospital trial has been the subject of great interest amongst pre-hospital and in-hospital clinicians alike, and demonstrates very promising data supporting these two defibrillation strategies.

We are delighted, then, to talk to the man himself on the podcast today. Sheldon shares with us data from the study, and talks with us about the underlying physiology and pathology of this patient cohort, as well as how a health care system needs to best accommodate this potential salvageable group of cardiac arrest sufferers.

A link to the New England Journal of Medicine paper is below, and as ever we hope you enjoy listening to this and part of of Sheldon's episode.

Chat soon!

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2207304

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