The 16th annual Safar Symposium and sixth annual Multi-Departmental Trainees’ Research Day was held May 31-June 1, 2018. This yearly event honors the late Dr. Peter Safar and his wife Eva for their contributions to the scientific community and highlights current research in areas spanning Dr. Safar’s interests. The research day event is a collaboration between the Departments of Anesthesiology, Critical Care Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Neurological Surgery, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, as well as the Peter M. Winter Institute for Simulation Education and Research (WISER).
The theme of the 2018 event was The Opioid Epidemic: Implications for Resuscitation Medicine. Forty-one posters were presented, as well as five oral presentations from trainees in each of the five collaborating departments. Kerry Ann Koper, an undergraduate student working with mentor Yan Xu, PhD, was the oral presenter from the Department of Anesthesiology, presenting “T1 Difference Image Voxel by Voxel Variance Analysis Reveals Blood Brain Barrier Changes in Mice Following Cardiac Arrest and Resuscitation.”
Benedict Alter, MD, PhD, a pain medicine fellow and incoming T32 postdoctoral scholar, tied for the Best Poster Award among all the posters at the symposium for “Optimizing Conditioned Analgesia for Translational Applications.” Two trainees tied for the top Department of Anesthesiology poster award. Christopher (Tyler) Smith, MD, a PGY-2 anesthesiology resident working with mentors James Ibinson, MD, PhD and Keith Vogt, MD, PhD, presented the poster “Midazolam Sedation During the Periodic Experience of Pain Decreases Functional Connectivity both Within and Between Brain Systems for Pain Processing and Memory Encoding” and Marta Wells, BS, a graduate student working with mentor Pei Tang, PhD, presented “Structure Determination of the α7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Intracellular Domain.”
Morning presentations on the first day of the symposium included:
"The Impact of the Opioid Epidemic on Resuscitation Medicine in Western Pennsylvania" by Anthony F. Pizon, MD, Chief, Division of Medical Toxicology, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
“Opioid Use in the ICU and Beyond” by Timothy Girard, MD MSCI, Department of Critical Care Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
“Opioid Guidelines: Lost in Translation” by Kurt Kroenke, MD, MACP, Chancellor’s Professor of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine
“Phenotyping Cardiac Arrest: Injury Mechanisms, Impact on Outcomes and Implications for Patient Care” by Cameron Dezfulian, MD, Adult and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
“Neuroprotection after Asphyxial Cardiac Arrest: Hypothermia +” by Robert Neumar, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan
“A New Therapeutic Approach to Asphyxial Cardiac Arrest using the Aquaporin-4 Antagonist AER-271” by Jessica Wallisch, MD, Department of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC; NH T32 Postdoctoral Scholar, Safar Center for Resuscitation Research
Lewis S. Nelson, MD, Professor and Chair of Emergency Medicine, and Chief of the Division of Medical Toxicology, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, delivered the 38th Peter and Eva Safar Annual Lecture in Medical Sciences and Humanities, “The Newest Opium War: Insights into the Current Opioid Crisis.”
WISER director Paul E. Phrampus, MD moderated day two of the symposium, which focused on Advancing Your Nursing Career Through Simulation and featured the following presentations:
“Are Certification and Accreditation Necessary for Excellence” by Chad Epps, MD, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center
“Advancing your Career on the Path of Simulation in Healthcare” by Jeffrey Groom, PhD, CRNA, School of Nursing and Health Studies, University of Miami
“Simulation for the Advanced Practice Nurse” by Kristen M. Brown, DNP, CRNP, CPNP-AC, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
“Augmented and Virtual Reality to Support Education, Simulation and Healthcare Delivery” by Geoffrey T. Miller, MS, EMT-P, Eastern Virginia Medical School