From the classroom to the emergency room, OR and beyond.

You're joining trauma ICU rounds with your host, Dr. Dennis Kim.

I feel that a lot of our patients could be saved.

Even post-operative patients when they're in shock or trauma patients can be saved by ECMO. We just have to do more

of it, get better at it, do it early with less anticoagulation, and do it before irreversible

and organ function has set in. That's Dr. Payman Benirash, a cardiothoracic surgeon, an associate

professor in residence of surgery and bioengineering at UCLA.

Dr. Benarash is an award-winning educator and prolific researcher whose cardiac outcomes research

lab, better known as the Core Lab, is actively involved in health services research,

the development of non-invasive physiologic sensors, as well as the design of physics-based

models for virtual surgery.

Regarding clinical interest, Payman has an active practice that ranges from traditional cardiac

surgeries to minimally invasive, hybrid, and catheter-based therapies for heart disease.

Additionally, one of the main focuses of my practice is, in fact, extracorporeal circulation as it relates to respiratory failure as well as cardiopulmonary failure.

I recently had an opportunity to sit down with Dr. Ben-Rosh and discuss a variety of key issues related to ECPR, ranging from ECPR or extracorporeal CPR to expanding indications for ECMO beyond the more commonly

accepted reasons such as acute refractory hypoxemia in the setting of ARDS.

We also had the opportunity to discuss Dr. Benarosh's efforts and early experiences with the

regionalization of ECMO care here in Los Angeles County. As the director of the UCLA adult ECMO program,

payment has been instrumental in getting the division of trauma here at Harbor UCLA up to speed

with regards to our ECMO program, and we've had several great successes over the past few years

with VV ECMO support for patients with ARDS from a host of traumatic and non-traumatic etiologies.

Before we get into all of that, let's begin with first things first, the rise of ECMO from an

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