By Karen McLaughlin
The Capital (Annapolis, MD)
Copyright 2007 Capital Gazette Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — From a crash scene to the hospital, Donna Stephenson makes a career out of saving lives.
As a pediatric critical care transport paramedic for the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, she knows having the right training and equipment can make a big difference in tough situations.
Looking at an infant transport device at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Critical Care Transport Symposium, the Severn resident saw new technology that had potential. Shaped like a tube or bobsled, the inside of the device includes an adjustable cushion that softly surrounds an infant and then becomes rigid to provide support, preventing the child from wiggling or loosening medical tubes.
“It’s like the bed in the hospital,” she said.
A paramedic for eight years, Ms. Stephenson came to the three-day symposium to learn more about ways to keep patients safer during transport.
“It opens up the world of all the technology that we don’t learn,” said Crista Lenk Stathers, director of Professional and Continuing Education at UMBC and a paramedic with Johns Hopkins Stat MedEvac, a private helicopter rescue service. “It’s what’s new, what’s hot, what’s upcoming.”
The symposium included 23 lecturers from hospitals from around the country as well as Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. More than 70 nurses, emergency medical technicians (EMT) and other medical personnel from Maryland, around the country, and as far as Trinidad and Canada came to learn about upcoming technology trends in critical care.
“UMBC always does great stuff. Their refresher is one of the best you can take,” said Ms. Stephenson.
The school’s Department of Emergency Health Services offers undergraduate and graduate education and professional or continuing education in emergency health, disaster response, counterterrorism, public health and other public emergency response services.
The lecturers, physicians and nurses from around the country shared the latest on ventilator management, flight medicine and acute coronary syndrome. Dr. Hal Shaffner of Johns Hopkins Hospital presented findings about best ways to manage brain edema in children after traumatic injury.
One demonstration of technology was the Baby Pod II, an infant transport device. Made by Cooper Surgical, the device has many advantages over current transportation methods.
“It’s compact, it weighs 20 pounds, you can carry it or strap it to a stretcher,” said Frank Eurice of Atlantic Medical Technologies in Bel Air. “To my knowledge, there’s nothing like this.”
The device is MRI compatible, so medical staff can send an infant through an MRI if necessary, while keeping the infant still and safe.
The device also includes a special blanket that warms the infant when activated, an important part of caring for sick or injured infants. Johns Hopkins Hospital already uses the Baby Pod II, and other hospitals might consider acquiring such a device.
“It’s new, more economical and safer for both the infant and the attending medical staff,” said Mr. Eurice.
Ms. Stathers said the symposium was a natural extension of the university’s critical care course options in their continuing education program. The university currently offers a two-week course for people who want to begin getting into critical care transport, or who recently have started. They also offer a nine-day course focusing on pediatric and neonatal critical care.
“But we thought, what about people who come in between?” said Ms. Stathers.
She added that because of new research and technology, medical staff in the growing field of critical care will always need to continue learning to keep their training current.
Advances in procedures and technologies for transporting the critically injured are especially important because victims of crashes and other injuries are most at risk while in transit to a hospital.
Ms. Stephenson moved around a lot because her husband is in the Navy. When she moved to Maryland six years ago, she began working in critical care. It’s a change from working 911 response, and she enjoys it.
“It’s so much more thinking, it’s more medical. When they go to the hospital, we can check on them. You can follow through and see the whole story.”
Ms. Stephenson admired the event’s variety of topics and appreciated being able to find such a professional learning opportunity so close to home. Now, she is eager to show off her new knowledge to her colleagues in critical care.
“We can go back and show up our coworkers,” she said.