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Steve Schexnayder, M.D.
Schexnayder Helps Update Resuscitation Guidelines
| Dec. 7, 2015 | When the American Heart Association (AHA) released its updated guidelines on resuscitation in October, Arkansas’ own Steve Schexnayder, M.D., helped lead the way.
Schexnayder, a professor of pediatrics and internal medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences who also practices at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, was heavily involved in writing and editing the 2015 guidelines, which are taught to hundreds of thousands of people.
“They represent the state of the art regarding resuscitation, and they’re used throughout most of the world as the gold standard of resuscitation,” Schexnayder said.
He became involved in the update through his work as a national volunteer in developing materials for the PALS (pediatric advanced life support) course He was the national chairman of the AHA’s Pediatric Life Support Committee from 2003-2005, and has been a scientific consultant to the AHA since that time.
“Science is always changing so the AHA updates the guidelines every five years,” he said. Interim changes that reflect significant changes are released between updates. The science review process took 18 months and included about 40 pediatric resuscitation experts from around the world. Schexnayder, along with another intensivist from Brazil, reviewed the science for prognostic factors in cardiac arrest.
“It’s the largest evidence review in the world. For our topic alone, we screened 6,400 papers and almost 200 topics,” he said. “When you consider the approximate 200 topics being considered across all age groups, tens of thousands of studies were reviewed.”
He was part of a group of about a dozen people who helped write and edit the guidelines for pediatric life support and pediatric advanced life support, as well as the executive summary. He taught an instructor update in Orlando in November to approximately 700 PALS educational leaders from around the world.
The 2015 AHA Guidelines can be found here.