
EDECMO Podcast
The ED ECMO Project is the work of Zack Shinar and Jon Marinaro to bring extracorporeal life support to EDs and ICUs around the world. This site aims to be the ultimate resource for the background, logistics, and evidence for resuscitative ECMO.
Latest episodes

Nov 3, 2023 • 26min
87 – Pearls From Prague and San Diego Resus Consortium with Saul Levine
This month Zack gives some pearls from his travels to Prague for Jan Behlolavek's ECPR school, Poland to meet with Marek Dabrowski, and ELSO with the entire crew. Zack also interviews Saul Levine for the first of what may be a recurring conversation about the San Diego Resuscitation Consortium. His efforts along with Kristi Koenig, Shawn Evans, Todd Baumbacher, and many others have paved the way for an OHCA ECPR protocol that may change more than just San Diego cardiac care. Listen to Saul explain how the first 3 months of this process has expanded the minds of what cardiac arrest care can look like.

Sep 6, 2023 • 38min
86: UCLA ECPR with Vadim Gudzenko
This episode is a follow up to last month's episode with Nichole Bosson. Zack interviews Vadim Gudzenko about the in-patient aspects and critical care doctor perspective on the Los Angeles OHCA ECPR program. A few take homes are that EMS is critical to any OHCA ECPR program. Nurses need support for these intense patients with high mortality. And emergency physicians need to buy in to the idea of ECMO for cardiac arrest to make a successful program.

Aug 1, 2023 • 49min
85: Los Angeles County ECPR Program with Nichole Bosson
One of the biggest questions in ECPR right now is how do we organize our system to provide ECPR in an effective and streamlined approach? Nichole Bosson and her army of ECPR enthusiasts have successfully implemented a multi-hospital ECPR receiving center program in Los Angeles. In this episode, Zack talks with Dr. Bosson about how they started, what they learned, and where they are going.
A little about Dr. Bosson
She is the Assistant Medical Director at the Los Angeles County EMS Agency. She is an Associate Clinical Professor at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and faculty and EMS fellowship director in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Harbor-UCLA.
Here is the link to her paper
Bosson N, Kazan C, Sanko S, Abramson T, Eckstein M, Eisner D, Geiderman J, Ghurabi W, Gudzenko V, Mehra A, Torbati S, Uner A, Gausche-Hill M, Shavelle D. Implementation of a regional extracorporeal membrane oxygenation program for refractory ventricular fibrillation out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Resuscitation. 2023 Jun;187:109711. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2023.109711. Epub 2023 Jan 30. PMID: 36720300.
And here is Jason Bartos' editorial
Bartos JA, Yannopoulos D. Starting an Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation Program: Success is in the details. Resuscitation. 2023 Jun;187:109792. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2023.109792. Epub 2023 Apr 10. PMID: 37044354.

Jun 19, 2023 • 28min
84: Talking ELSO with CEO Christine Stead
Jon Marinaro takes EDECMO through another great podcast. This time he interviews Christine Stead, the CEO of ELSO. She talks about ELSO is setting up standards for ECMO programs to try to make ECMO care at all hospitals to be safer. She talks about how she works also with the device industry. This involves working with the FDA as well as for future innovations. She talks about the website and how to get your program certified. Christine as a person is amazing. She and her 5 person team runs an organization that has its hands in so many different areas. Also, she is avid runner having completed 12 Boston Marathons!

May 29, 2023 • 33min
83: Taking ECMO in Pulmonary Embolism to the Next Level
In this episode Jon Marinaro joins the ED ECMO team and interviews his colleague Sundeep Guliani, MD about the use of an ECMO first strategy for Massive Pulmonary Embolism. Jon and Sundeep review the data and processes from their institution and from other institutions in the United States. Could it be that ECLS could move the survival needle on this high mortality disease? Listen and find out!
Hobohm L, Sagoschen I, Habertheuer A, Barco S, Valerio L, Wild J, Schmidt FP,
Gori T, Münzel T, Konstantinides S, Keller K. Clinical use and outcome of
extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in patients with pulmonary embolism.
Resuscitation. 2022 Jan;170:285-292. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2021.10.007.
Epub 2021 Oct 12. PMID: 34653550.
Shinar Z, Hutin A. Pulmonary ECMO-ism: Let's add PEA to ECPR indications.
Resuscitation. 2022 Jan;170:293-294. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2021.11.004.
Epub 2021 Nov 10. PMID: 34774708.
Pudil J, Rob D, Smalcova J, Smid O, Huptych M, Vesela M, Kovarnik T,
Belohlavek J. Pulmonary embolism related refractory out-of-hospital cardiac
arrest and extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation: Prague OHCA study post-
hoc analysis. Eur Heart J Acute Cardiovasc Care. 2023 May 12:zuad052. doi:
10.1093/ehjacc/zuad052. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37172033.
Karami M, Mandigers L, Miranda DDR, Rietdijk WJR, Binnekade JM, Knijn DCM,
Lagrand WK, den Uil CA, Henriques JPS, Vlaar APJ; DUTCH ECLS Study Group.
Survival of patients with acute pulmonary embolism treated with venoarterial
extracorporeal membrane oxygenation: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J
Crit Care. 2021 Aug;64:245-254. doi: 10.1016/j.jcrc.2021.03.006. Epub 2021 Mar
24. PMID: 34049258.

Feb 10, 2023 • 29min
82: Inception Trial with Jon Marinaro
In this episode, Jon Marinaro and Zack Shinar go through the hot off the press Inception trial. The trial was touted as a negative ECPR study though many reasons make this trial different then the ARREST trial. They go through several important take home points for practitioners starting or running an ECPR/ECMO program.

Nov 14, 2022 • 23min
81: In Hospital Cardiac Arrest ECMO Inclusion Criteria with Joe Tonna
In this podcast, Joe Tonna tells us how to approach hypothermia with ECPR patients. He also goes through his paper RESCUE-IHCA giving us an immediate way to prognosticate in patients to use of ECMO or not.
Hypothermia - Resuscitation
Nakashima T, Ogata S, Noguchi T, Nishimura K, Hsu CH, Sefa N, Haas NL, Bĕlohlávek J, Pellegrino V, Tonna JE, Haft J, Neumar RW. Association of intentional cooling, achieved temperature and hypothermia duration with in-hospital mortality in patients treated with extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation: An analysis of the ELSO registry. Resuscitation. 2022 Aug;177:43-51. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2022.06.022. Epub 2022 Jul 3. PMID: 35788020.
Hypothermia Meta-Analysis
Duan J, Ma Q, Zhu C, Shi Y, Duan B. eCPR Combined With Therapeutic Hypothermia Could Improve Survival and Neurologic Outcomes for Patients With Cardiac Arrest: A Meta-Analysis. Front Cardiovasc Med. 2021 Aug 13;8:703567. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2021.703567. PMID: 34485403; PMCID: PMC8414549.
In Hospital Cardiac Arrest and ECPR Inclusion
Tonna JE, Selzman CH, Girotra S, Presson AP, Thiagarajan RR, Becker LB, Zhang C, Rycus P, Keenan HT; American Heart Association Get With the Guidelines–Resuscitation Investigators. Resuscitation Using ECPR During In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (RESCUE-IHCA) Mortality Prediction Score and External Validation. JACC Cardiovasc Interv. 2022 Feb 14;15(3):237-247. doi: 10.1016/j.jcin.2021.09.032. Epub 2022 Jan 12. PMID: 35033471; PMCID: PMC8837656.

Oct 7, 2022 • 22min
80: The Expert Approved ECPR Procedure with Florian Schmitzberger
In this episode, Zack interviews Florian Schmitzberger who just published a fantastic study that incorporates fourteen leaders within the ECPR community to hash out the specific procedural steps associated with ECPR.

Sep 20, 2022 • 23min
79: Prolonged Arrests and the Denmark Experience
This month Zack gives a few pearls from the recent Reanimate courses and annual ELSO meeting in Boston before he interviews Gawry Mork from Aarhus University about her fantastic recent paper.
Pearl #1 is about hand placement in cannulation. Hold the ultrasound in your left an
d needle in right. Once in the vessel, drop the US probe and take your left hand and gently hold the needle. With your right hand grab the wire far enough up to be to insert into the vessel in one push.
Gawry's paper has many interesting points. Probably the biggest is the reasonable survivorship for prolonger arrests. This is tied to equality of care for patient who live far from the closest ECMO center.

Aug 15, 2022 • 26min
78: ECMO in South Africa
This month we are honored to have Neville Vlok on the show. Neville has been one of the key physicians pushing for ECPR in South Africa. In this episode, we explore what medicine and resuscitation looks like in South Africa, how ECMO has been utilized, and whether ECMO even makes sense in developing countries.
Vlok N, Hedding KA, Van Dyk MA. Saved by the pump: Two successful resuscitations utilising emergency department-initiated extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation in South Africa. S Afr Med J. 2021 Mar 2;111(3):208-210. doi: 10.7196/SAMJ.2021.v111i3.15366. PMID: 33944740.