Expert Life Support: Advanced Initial Treatment of Critically Ill Patients and Patients in Cardiac Arrest

This book aims to provide a next-step in resuscitation care compared to the standard Advanced life support (ALS) guidelines of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) or the American heart association (AHA), the trauma care guidelines for Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) and the European Trauma Course (ETC) guidelines. Compared to these guidelines, “Expert life support” provides a more in-depth discussion of topics not extensively discussed in existing guidelines, and it also covers (relatively) new techniques and concepts, such as endovascular resuscitation and physiology-guided resuscitation.

The overall aim of the book is to provide acute care providers from various backgrounds (pre-hospital as well as in-hospital) and various disciplines with up-to-date, evidence-based guidance on the (advanced) management of critically ill patients. In its chapters, the Author aims to describe treatment options for the initial treatment of critically ill patients in a concise- and accessible way, based on the most recent literature. Short summaries are provided after each chapter.

This book aims to close the gap between professions, by integrating knowledge from various disciplines and focusing on the patient and his/her condition in the first hours of his/her illness, thereby contributing to an improved team knowledge and CRM of multidisciplinary trauma- and resuscitation teams caring for our sickest patients. The text is comprehensive and although the book is aimed at a target audience of mainly physicians working in critical care disciplines, it is also addressed to specialist nurses and (EMS) paramedics working in critical care disciplines (ED, ITU, anesthesia, HEMS), as well.

Dr. Ewoud ter Avest, MD PhD, is an assistant Professor in Emergency Medicine at the University Medical Center Groningen, division of Acute Care and a prehospital research fellow at London’s Air Ambulance. He has over 20 years of experience in Emergency Medicine, and has worked in prehospital critical care since 2018. He has authored/co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers on critical care topics in journals as Critical Care, Resuscitations and JAMA Surgery, several of which have featured in critical care podcasts. He has been an invited speaker on critical care congresses across Europe, and has a special (research) interest in trauma resuscitation. He is supervising various PhD students, and has a passion for critical care education, which has culminated in the publication of the Dutch “Expert Life Support” book, a 300-pages book on advanced resuscitation techniques.