Ray Fowler, M.D., F.A.C.P., presented the 2012 McNabney Lectureship on May 31 at the School of Medicine. The lectureship honors Kendall McNabney, M.D., who founded the Department of Emergency Medicine at Truman Medical Center and the UMKC School of Medicine in 1973. McNabney was also the first and longest serving chair of EM at the School and was the head of trauma services for many years.
Matthew Gratton, M.D., associate professor and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine, who has been with the department since 1983, welcomed McNabney to the lecture and spoke about his great effect on EM in Kansas City before introducing Fowler.
Fowler’s lecture titled, “The Past, Present and Future of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation,” focused on studies and trials of the Dallas arm of the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC), for which Fowler is co-principle investigator.
Fowler has been involved in EMS as a leading educator, medical supervisor and political advocate for more than three decades. He currently serves as co-chief in the Section on EMS, Disaster Medicine, and Homeland Security for Southwestern Medical Center. He is chief of EMS Operations for the Dallas Area BioTel EMS System and an attending EM faculty member at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas.
In addition to serving as president of the Georgia College of Emergency Physicians and as a perennial member (since 1980) of the State of Georgia EMS Advisory Council, he was the second elected president of the National Association of EMS Physicians. He was also a co-founder and senior faculty member of the National EMS Medical Director’s Course, helped found and was national program director of International Trauma Life Support, and was a member of the initial steering committee of the National Association of EMS Physicians.
During his lecture at the School of Medicine, Fowler stressed the importance of compression fraction – the number of seconds per minute of doing compressions – and its role in determining survival in patients with out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation. Fowler also mentioned that evidence shows the ideal compression fraction is 40 seconds of every minute. These discoveries have increased the survival rate in cardiac arrest patients, “the sickest patients you will ever have,” according to Fowler.
He also stressed the importance of avoiding interruptions in compressions when administering CPR. This concept of Minimally Interrupted Cardiac Resuscitation (MICR) increased the survival-to-hospital discharge of patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Fowler concluded with his vision for the future: “That all (who) can be prepared, would be. That all of us in clinical care sing as a well-rehearsed choir from the same sheets of music, and that research will light our paths as we maintain our commitment to the betterment of the human condition.”
