ECMO

DUSTOFF Medic Podcast

COL (ret.) Joseph DuBose joins Trevor and Max to provide an overview of ECMO, and discuss its use in flight. ECMO isn't a new procedure, but it has become more visible in recent years as its use has expanded. In Europe, there are pre-hospital ECMO teams, and the US Air Force CCAT program has brought the technology far forward. Dr. DuBose has been involved with some of these efforts, along with research supporting its use. Recently, Dr. DuBose co-authored a paper describing a feasibility study of battlefield initiation of ECMO, with follow on rotary-wing evacuation (citation below).
In addition to the ins-and-outs of ECMO, Dr. DuBose discusses the real-world challenges of bringing advanced procedures such as ECMO and REBOA to the battlefield, and makes a very compelling case that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.
Reva, V. A., Pochtarnik, A. A., Shelukhin, D. A., Skvortzov, A. E., Semenov, E. A., Emelyanov, A. A., Nosov, A. M., Demchenko, K. N., Reznik, O. N., Samokhvalov, I. M., & DuBose, J. J. (2020). Battlefield Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation for Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Feasibility Study During Military Exercises. Journal of special operations medicine : a peer reviewed journal for SOF medical professionals, 20(4), 77–83.