Three-day event focused on latest techniques and technologies for transporting the critically injured by ambulance, helicopter or planes.

CONTACT:
Kavan Peterson
Office: 410-455-1896
Cellphone: 443-739-3052
kavan@umbc.edu

BALTIMORE – Dozens of Emergency Medical Technicians Paramedics (EMT-P), nurses, physicians and ambulance and medevac flight crews from around the country will descend on the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s (UMBC) campus May 5-7 to attend the inaugural Critical Care Transport Symposium hosted by UMBC's Department of Emergency Health Services.

The conference will focus on the treatment of critically ill or injured patients while in transit by ambulance, helicopter or airplane. Sessions on Saturday and Sunday will focus on adult patients and the latest technologies and treatments for heart attacks, head trauma, massive blood loss and other conditions. Monday’s sessions will focus on pediatric and neonatal issues, such as pain medication use on children and fetal monitoring during transport. The symposium will be held at UMBC’s Technology Research Center (Located south of the campus circle -- click here for a map and directions).

Advances in treatments and technologies for transporting the critically injured are important because victims of crashes and other traumatic injuries face the highest risk of death while in transit to a hospital, said Crista Lenk Stathers, a medevac paramedic in Baltimore and Pennsylvania and Director of Professional and Continuing Education for UMBC’s Department of Emergency Health Services (EHS).

“It’s exactly at the point when we get the patient stabilized and into an aircraft or ambulance and take off that the patient decides to take a downward spiral and crash,” Stathers said.

Featured on Saturday will be a demonstration of the new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) infant transfer device. The Baby Pod II, created by CooperSurgical, provides a temperature-stable and shock-absorbent environment for infant transport. Stathers is one of the many medevac crews to use the Baby Pod II to transport infants to and from the various pediatric facilities throughout Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC.

Other topics covered will be the latest treatments for heart attacks, containment of infectious diseases, missed trauma injuries and new mobile Ventricular Assist Devices (VADs) to keep the heart pumping during transport. Speakers include specialists from the Brain Trauma Center, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Washington Medical Center. For a detailed schedule and to register contact Kavan Peterson: 410-455-1896 or kavan@umbc.edu.

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About the Department of Emergency Health Services
UMBC’s Department of Emergency Health Services is the country’s largest and most experienced program offering undergraduate and graduate education in emergency health, disaster response, counterterrorism, public health and other public emergency response services. It is also the nation’s largest provider of professional and continuing education for emergency medical professionals, providing certification through 44 universities nationwide.