Detroit emergency doctor's ventilator idea is getting global attention

[SunSeeker]

Dr. Charlene Irvin Babcock, an emergency physician at Ascension St. John Hospital in Detroit, wrote a research paper with Dr. Greg Neyman in 2006, explaining that adaptations including T- or Y-shaped splitters on air flow tubes could allow a single ventilator to serve two people, four or even more.

Ventilator-sharing was used by emergency physician Dr. Kevin Menes for the crush of injured in Las Vegas following the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, at a country music concert on Oct. 1, 2017. Menes had served his residency with Neyman, Babcock's co-author on the 2006 study, and was familiar with the concept.

Ventilator-splitting is controversial. A significant contingent of doctors say its potential for germ transfers between patients, and negative impacts on an individual patient's breathing caused by being connected to a machine with others, make it too much of a risk.

"It's something I put out there in the hopes it would help people," Babcock said. "To see it actually working, saving lives, it is unbelievable. But it's also unbelievable that things have gotten so bad that they actually have to use this."

Link to tweet

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/coronavirus-puts-spotlight-on-detroit-doctors-idea-of-sharing-ventilators/ar-BB127lJ5?ocid=iehp&li=BBnbfcL

[SheltieLover]

1. K&R

[Me.]

2. KR

[Wounded Bear]

3. Medically not preferable, but you gotta do what you gotta do...

when lives are on the line.