How Bystander CPR Improves the Odds of Survival| Podcast
Statistics present that women and communities of coloration are much less prone to obtain cardiopulmonary resuscitation after cardiac arrest. Dr. Sylvia Owusu-Ansah is the emergency medical providers director at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and co-founder of Akoma United, a company with the mission to avoid wasting lives, particularly in communities of coloration, and objective to empower on a regular basis folks to make use of CPR. She shares why it is necessary and reminds us that there’s no legal responsibility when doing CPR. Listen to the episode or learn the transcript.
Wearing so much of hats
Dr. Sylvia Owusu-Ansah grew up round the world. She was born in Lexington, KY, then moved to New Hampshire, southwest Africa for many of her high college profession, then Boston, after which Rochester University for her undergraduate diploma. She says she was one of these children who knew what she wished to be from the age of 7: “I always wanted to be a doctor.”
In spite of disturbing and contradictory predictions from classmates that she would solely get into med college as a result of she was Black or not get into med college in any respect as a result of she was Black, Owusu-Ansah obtained accepted to the University of Chicago.
She says she obtained the cellphone name and was in disbelief. “Nothing was electronic back then,” she says. “I was waiting for the letter!”
From there, Owusu-Ansah went to Children’s National in Washington, D.C., for a residency in pediatrics. During the summer time, she obtained a level in public health from Johns Hopkins. After residency, Owusu-Ansah was a pediatrician in an emergency division. She liked it a lot, she did a fellowship with Johns Hopkins for pediatric emergency drugs.
Owusu-Ansah’s husband, in the meantime, was a paramedic firefighter. Intrigued by the work he did, Owusu-Ansah did a fellowship in EMS care. She discovered that her space of experience, pediatric emergency drugs, was missing in the EMS discipline.
“The majority of EMS clinicians are adult-focused,” says Owusu-Ansah.
Called to do extra
“I’m a person of faith,” says Owusu-Ansah. “And in November of 2022, I had an epiphany that I needed to do more cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) education. And I’m the queen of cold calls, so I decided I was just going to email the NFL medical director.” Owusu-Ansah stated the NFL wanted bystander training in CPR and that she might assist.
A couple of months later, Buffalo Bills security Damar Hamlin collapsed throughout a Monday Night Football recreation towards the Cincinnati Bengals. This incident introduced residence the want for bystander CPR training and put the situation in the nationwide highlight.
Owusu-Ansah set to work and arranged the training of 105 soccer gamers on CPR in at some point. She introduced her program to the schools and educated 500 division one athletes on one other day.
Owusu-Ansah says this wouldn’t have been potential with out group assist.
“The reason I’m so passionate about this is the research,” she says. “Communities of color are less likely to receive CPR. Women are less likely to receive CPR. We’ve known about these disparities, but we haven’t done much to move the needle to change it.”
CPR works by restarting the coronary heart and lungs to oxygenate the mind and get it going once more. The coronary heart stops for varied causes, says Owusu-Ansah. Every cell works off of electrical energy. She compares the coronary heart stopping to when the lights flicker at residence. They can both come again on or keep off if the energy doesn’t get again up and running.
“It’s really important that everyone learns how to do CPR,” says Owusu-Ansah. Statistics say that 80 % of cardiac arrests occur at residence, so that you’re probably going to be doing it on somebody you realize and love.
Owusu-Ansah says that point is the key to surviving a cardiac arrest. Three minutes after mind loss of life is basically all a person has. If you watch for EMS to get there, the person most likely gained’t survive. “The sooner someone starts CPR, the higher the likelihood of survival. It’s not the doctors or the trauma surgeons who are going to save them, it’s everyday people,” says Owusu-Ansah.
Empowering on a regular basis folks
Owusu-Ansah says group assist means all the things to initiatives like bystander CPR.
“The key is to be integrated in the community. Particularly in underserved communities of color, immigrant communities. Build trust so that you can get people’s buy-in,” she says.
Owusu-Ansah cofounded Akoma United with this categorical goal. The group’s mission is to empower folks to assist save all lives, particularly these in communities of coloration. They present CPR training in addition to cease the bleed training and different methods bystanders will help in an emergency scenario.
“The vision is that if anyone dropped down from cardiac arrest, there’d be someone there to perform CPR,” says Owusu-Ansah. “We all have the potential to do good. People innately want to do good. They want to help others. They just need to be guided.”
One impediment to beat is folks’s worry of making a scenario worse, however Owusu-Ansah reminds communities that there isn’t a legal responsibility on the person serving to, and doing one thing is healthier than nothing. “Every life is worth saving,” she says.