The EMS Lighthouse Project

Whole blood is the current bright, shiny thing in EMS medicine. It works in the hospital and is what our patients are bleeding out onto the road so it just seems to make sense that we should put back what they’re loosing. But… is it any better than blood components? That’s the question the authors of TOWAR tried to answer. One of those authors, Dr Frank Guyette, joins us for a two episode intervie...

Whole blood is the current bright, shiny thing in EMS medicine. It works in the hospital and is what our patients are bleeding out onto the road so it just seems to make sense that we should put back what they’re loosing. But… is it any better than blood components? That’s the question the authors of TOWAR tried to answer. One of those authors, Dr Frank Guyette, joins us for a two episode intervie...

Join Dr. Jeff Jarvis for part II of his interview with podcase friend and frequent contributor, now-Dr Tanner Smida where we discuss his defense of his PhD. Dr Smida discusses four papers that inform cardiac arrest resuscitation, as well as lessons he learned about conducting well-designed observational studies.  Although his dissertation was built around only 4 papers, here is Dr Smida’s entire b...

Join Dr. Jeff Jarvis as he interviews podcase friend and frequent contributor, now-Dr Tanner Smida for the first of a two-part interview where we discuss his defense of his PhD. Dr Smida discusses four papers that inform cardiac arrest resuscitation, as well as lessons he learned about conducting well-designed observational studies.  Although his dissertation was built around only 4 papers, here i...

This is a special version of the EMS Lighthouse, live from Ashland, OR. We are joined by Mike Verkest and Dr Ritu Sahni from The EMS Show, and Jimmy Apple from The EMS Avenger at the State of Jefferson Conference in Southern Oregon. We had a blast and covered a to of ground. I hope y'all enjoy!

Dr Remle Crowe returns to the podcast to discuss three new papers with Dr Jarvis: Two papers on epinephrine in cardiact arrest (including one on trauma!) and one on pulse oximetry in hypoxemic patients with darker skin. We might nerd out a bit on methodology, tacos, and have a few book recommendations. Citations:  Martin DS, Doidge JC, Gould D, et al.: The impact of skin tone on performance of pul...

We were all taught succinylcholine is contraindicated in hyperkalemia because it can cause potassium release, exacerbating the problem. But does it? Does it really? Dr. Jarvis discusses a recent paper that seems to compare mortality within 24 hours of RSI in hyperkalemic patients between those intubated with succ or rocuronium. And then we discuss methods.. including the Table 1 Fallacy.  Citation...

You've read about how this groundbreaking trial on ketamine vs etomidate for RSI "Changes Everything!" on the socials. Or perhaps "it's horribly biased and unnecessary... we're already knew all this!".  Why? Well.. social media. Listen in as Dr Jarvis discusses not just this trial, but what the evidence landscape was before it was released. Why was it done, how was it done, what does it show, and...

Right on the heels of the release of the 2025 AHA guidelines, including one on preferentially using IVs over IOs, comes two RCTs in the same edition of NEJM that compare intial attempts with IVs to IOs in out of hospital cardiac arrest. Dr Jarvis discusses these two papers while answer a listeners question, and tries to put this, and early epinephrine, into context. And he might throw in some comm...

ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, recently published EMS guidelines for treatment of hypertension in pregnancy/pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, and postpartum hemorrhage. Drs. Jenna White and Christopher Zahn join Dr Jarvis to discuss the science behind these recommendations as well as how to implement them into our practice.  Citations: 1. https://www.acog.org/programs/obste...

You use ketamine. I use ketamine. We all use ketamine. But… how safe it is, really? A new study out of Toronto suggests 30% of patients who receive ketamine have adverse events, a rate higher than seen in the ED. What are we to make of this? I bring Dr Remle Crowe on to discuss… Citations: 1.     Kwong JL, Verbeek PR, Leong YC, Turner L, Huiskamp M, Drennan IR, Francom S, Ropp S, Cheskes S: Parame...

We've covered pre-oxygenation strategies and intubation alot on this podcast, mayber more than anyting else. We covered the definition of FPS in E74, the DEVICE trial on DL vs VL in E75, and the PREOXI trial of NIV vs Mask Pre-oxygenation in E86. Now we have another Preoxygenation paper, this one that reports no difference between preoxygenation with BVM and face mask. WTAF? Better listen, because...

The 2017 NEJM study, ALPS, compared amiodarone, lidocaine, and placebo for refractory shockable rhythms in adults with out of hospital cardiac arrest. They found no significant difference in survival to hospital discharge or functional survival between any of the arms. If that study has left you confused, you’re not alone.  And you’re in luck. Tanner Smida joins us again to discuss his latest pape...

We just got a new paper that compares initial treatment with adenosine compared with diltiazem for the treatment of adults with SVT in the ED. Wouldn’t it be great if it turned out that diltiazem was just as effective, if not more effective, as adenosine without the crappy feeling?  Yeah, that’d be great, but what do we do with statistically insignificant results. Is there, perhaps, a way to save...

The next time you go to intubate a patient, should you give the sedation before the paralytic or the paralytic before the sedative? Does it matter? And what the hell does Bayes have to do with any of this? Dr Jarvis reviews a paper that uses Bayesian statistics to calculate the association between drug sequence and first attempt failure. Then he returns to Nerd Valley to talk about how to interpre...

We covered a paper in episode 81 that suggested treating atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response in the field could lower mortality. But it also drops BP a bit. Could pretreating these patients with calcium lower the risk of hypotension? Dr Jarvis puts on his nerd hat and uses Bayesian analysis to assess a new randomized, placebo-controlled study that looked at just this thing. Why is...

Wrapping up a series of 5 episodes, Dr Jarvis finishes his discussion of mechanical CPR devices (MCDs) talking about papers from Utah, Vienna, Anchorage, and Cincinnati and then gives his take on how to interpret the literature and put it into practice. Papers discussed: 1)    Youngquist ST, Ockerse P, Hartsell S, Stratford C, Taillac P: Mechanical chest compression devices are associated with poo...

Last episode we described the literature showing no survival benefit to patients with the AutoPulse device. Fear not, I wasn’t ignoring the LUCAS, I just felt it deserved it’s own episode. We’ll cover the LINC and PARAMEDIC randomized controlled trials and the secondary analysis of LINC in shockable rhythms.  I switched to a new production process using a new mic (Rode NT1) and started using ecamm...

Our story so far.. episode 92 looked at a study showing lower survival from in-hospital cardiac arrest in patients treated with mechanical compression devices. Episode 93 discussed an implementation study of implementing LUCAS devices in a system with high quality pit crew CPR also showing lower survival, despite spending lots of time in training on how to optimally apply the LUCAS to avoid prolon...

Ever wonder what would happen to cardiac arrest survival after a system implements LUCAS devices and trains really hard to deploy them appropriately? Wonder no more. Dr Jarvis reviews a paper from the Austin/Travis County EMS System that will shed some light on the question. This is the second episode in a series on mechanical compression devices.   Citations: 1.     Gonzales L, Oyler BK, Hayes JL...

We know the literature on mechanical CPR devices on mortality in out of hospital cardiac arrest (we DO know this literature, right?), but what about in-hospital arrest? Dr. Jarvis reviews a recent paper that uses the AHA Get With The Guidelines - Resuscitation registry to assess the association between MCDs and mortality.  Citations 1. Crowley C, Salciccioli J, Wang W, Tamura T, Kim EY, Moskowitz...

New Orleans implemented a blood program and assessed the impact of the program on mortality. Dr Jarvis dives into the details of the paper and then Dr Remle Crowe joins in for a discussion on why studying blood in the field is so difficult.  Citation:  Broome JM, Nordham KD, Piehl M, Tatum D, Caputo S, Belding C, De Maio VJ, Taghavi S, Jackson-Weaver O, Harris C, et al.: Faster refill in an urban...

We've reviewed several papers in the past that suggest there might be an advantage to using IV access compared to IO access for medications in cardiac arrest. Is that really a thing? Wouldn't it be great if we had some randomized controlled trials to help answer the questions?   Funny you should mention RCTs. Dr Jarvis reviews three (THREE!) new RCTs that compare IV to IO access in out of hospital...

Back in episode 80 we discussed a feasibility study out of Salt Lake City that showed IM epi resulted in 3-minute faster administration in cardiac arrest. It was underpowered to show survival, however. Fortunately, the great folks in Salt Lake City is back with a larger bite at the statistical apple. Dr Jarvis discusses the background around what we know about epinephrine in cardiac arrest (briefl...

Do you give naloxone to patients who are in cardiac arrest? Should you? Can it possibly provide any benefit at all once you are already providing effective ventilations? Well, Dr. Jarvis certainly thought not. He might have even thought it out loud. Like, loudly out loud.   Based on two recent papers looking directly at this question, perhaps he needs to eat some crow and shine the bright light of...