Current Management of the Cardiac Arrest Patient

You are in the emergency department (ED), halfway through your shift. You are informed that a patient has collapsed in the hospital lobby, only 20 feet away. The patient is being rapidly moved from the lobby area to a resuscitation room. You are presented with an adult male at the upper end of the middle age years; no signs of life are noted …he lacks a palpable pulse and you do not observe any respiratory activity. You note coarse ventricular fibrillation on the monitor. This patient has the dubious distinction of being the most critically ill patient in the ED with the most extreme time-sensitivity of any presentation that we manage in the ED.
Source: Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Preface Source Type: research