ECMO: The Patient Journey

Segun Olusanya

Consultant Intensivist

Segun is a newly appointed Intensive Care Consultant at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, with special interests in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), clinician wellbeing, point of care ultrasound, equality/diversity/inclusion, and online education. His real claim to fame is running an award winning wedding cake and confectionery business with his wife, Fehintola; he primarily functions as Chief Taster, and occasional Dish Washer.

: @iceman_ex

Stella Amor Fernandez

HR, Wellbeing, Diversity and Inclusion specialist

Stella Amor is a HR, Wellbeing, Diversity and Inclusion specialist with over 30 years’ experience working in the hospitality and luxury services industry. Stella is also an active volunteer with ICUSteps charity supporting post ICU care.

Like many, the pandemic was life-changing for me…. It was Christmas Day when the ambulance had to take me away from my family; I could not breathe. Up to then, I had led such a privileged life in so many ways, a beautiful family, and a successful career. I was invincible and relentless in my pursuit of excellence and success. It took a traumatic near-death experience for me to stop. I fought to survive, live, and make it home: and life would never be the same again. Now I have reignited my purpose…. I survived to thrive and share my story of trauma, change, resilience, and transitioning to living life purposefully. I want to share this with others and reignite people’s personal and organisational purpose toward finding a place where we can all belong

Nicholas Barrett

Consultant Intensivist

Dr Nicholas Barrett is a consultant in critical care medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust who trained in both anaesthesia and intensive care medicine at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney Australia. He leads the ICU at Guy’s and St Thomas' and has particular interests in severe cardio-respiratory failure, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and extracorporeal CO₂ removal (ECCO₂R), including its provision in pregnancy. He is a specialist advisor to NICE and HSIB. He is chair of EuroELSO, the organisation supporting the development of ECMO in Europe and provides advice to ECMO programmes around the world.

 

Andrew Doyle

Consultant Haematologist

Andrew is a consultant haematologist at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London where he specialises in treating a variety of thrombotic and bleeding disorders and vascular malformations. He is clinical lead for the regional Haemostasis and Thrombosis laboratory providing diagnostic support to London and South East England. His research interests include understanding acquired coagulopathies in critical illness and extracorporeal devices and developing safe and effective anticoagulation strategies, with previous doctoral studies in these areas with King’s College London.

Anne-Marie Doyle

Consultant Clinical Psychologist

Dr Anne-Marie Doyle specialises in the provision of psychological services to patient and families during Critical Care and ECMO, and outpatient rehabilitation as part of the after ICU follow-up clinics.  

Dr Doyle is head of adult Psychology based at the Royal Brompton Hospital and manages a range of clinical services designed to optimise physical health, functioning, psychological well-being, adjustment and health-related quality of life. Her work focuses on the interface between biomedicine and psychology drawing upon a range of strengths-based, trauma-informed psychological approaches including CBT, EMDR and ACT.

Jo-Anne Fowles

Nurse Consultant

Jo-Anne Fowles (MSc, RGN) is Nurse Consultant for ECMO & Critical Care at Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, UK.

As Nurse Consultant, she provides clinical leadership, support and training to the ECMO and Critical Care team and assists with the strategic planning, organisation, management and evaluation of the ECMO Service.

Jo-Anne is a member of the Euro-ELSO Steering Committee and the Nursing Advisory Group of the UK Intensive Care Society.

Jo-Anne is co-author of the Core Critical Care Series book “ECMO in the Adult Patient” and is co-director of the Cambridge ECMO course.

: @@Jo_anneFowles

Miguel Garcia

Critical Care Consultant in Cardiothoracic Anaesthesia

Dr Garcia is a consultant in cardiothoracic anaesthesia and intensive care at Manchester University Foundation Trust where he is the lead for ECMO.

His key areas of interest include ECMO, transplantation, simulation training, and patient safety/human factors, including developing several ECMO training and simulation programmes.

: @@UkMiguel

Simon Hamilton

Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist Intensive Care and ECMO

I graduated as a physiotherapist in 2011 and have worked in multiple trusts across London since, doing core rotations and specialist rotations in respiratory and intensive care across medical, surgical and transplantation intensive care units. I moved to St Bartholomew’s in 2017 and am currently the Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist for the intensive care unit, with a specialist interest in ECMO and rehabilitation after critical illness. I am part of the national ECMO physiotherapy network and am actively involved in the education delivered by the group. I am the current chair of the North East London AHP Critical Care Network, with a passion for improvement and high quality care across the group.

Terpsi Karpasiti

Clinical Lead Critical Care Dietitian

Terpsi is the Clinical Lead Critical Care Dietitian at the Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospitals, Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. She has an MSc in Critical Care, extensive clinical experience in critical care nutrition and specialises in cardiorespiratory critical care and ECMO. Terpsi has a keen interest in research, with her main research focus being the nutritional and delayed gastric emptying management of critically ill patients receiving ECMO. Terpsi also holds an extended role within the critical care team, which includes bedside post-pyloric feeding tube placements. She is currently joint research officer for the British Dietetic Association's Critical Care Specialist Group, as well as co-chair of the NJ feeding tube placement sub-group and lead of the newly-developed UK ECMO dietetic forum.

Haifa Lyster

Consultant Pharmacist - Transplantation & VADs, Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospitals

Dr Lyster is a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and its’ Faculty. She is the consultant pharmacist in Cardiothoracic Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support at Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospitals, managing the pharmaceutical care of VAD/ECMO and heart and lung transplant patients. Dr Lyster is on the board of Directors of the International Society of Heart & Lung Transplantation (ISHLT), having held several leadership roles within the society. She co-founded and is the Chair of Solid Organ Transplant Pharmacy Association with colleagues from renal and liver transplantation delivering an annual conference since 2013 supporting pharmacists in SOT, membership and attendance of pharmacists across Europe. She has completed a research doctorate developing Pharmacokinetic models of antifungal agents in critically ill patients with ECMO. Dr Lyster has recently commenced a NIHR Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Award R1, her research interests include personalisation of dosing in special populations e.g. critically ill patients with or without ECMO, RRT.

Brijesh Patel

Clinical Director for Adult Critical Care and Extracorporeal Life Support Services

Dr Brij Patel is clinical director for adult critical care and extracorporeal life support services at the Royal Brompton hospital. He is a clinical senior lecturer in cardiothoracic critical care at Imperial College London where he leads a basic and translational research programme investigating the clinical progression and pathobiology of severe cardiac and respiratory failure, particularly those supported on extracorporeal devices. Brij is a physician scientist, and his laboratory team focuses on the pathophysiology and progression of necroinflammation and fibroproliferation within critical care. He also investigates physiology-based ventilation algorithms (based on a combination of artificial intelligence and decision theory) to personalise mechanical ventilation and understand cardiopulmonary physiology during mechanical ventilation. He is chief investigator of the NIHR funded study examining total lung rest using near-apnoeic ventilation within the UK VV-ECMO network. He is a member of the ELSO research nucleus, contributes to the International ECMONet group, and is developing the research programme for the UK ECMO network.

Andrew Retter

Clinical Lead for Intensive Care at Guys and St. Thomas’, UK

Andrew Retter is Clinical Lead for Intensive Care at Guys and St. Thomas’

He qualified from St. George’s (London) in 2001 and has worked as a consultant since 2014.

Dr Retter has academic interests in transfusion, Haemostasis and immunothrombosis and in particular the relationship to sepsis.
 

Dr Retter is also the Chief Medical Officer of VolitionRx a diagnostic company.

Caroline Sampson

Consultant Intensivist, Anaesthetist and Adult ECMO

Dr Caroline Sampson BMBS BMedSci FRCA FFICM EDIC

Consultant in Anaesthesia, Intensive care medicine and Adult ECMO

Caz dabbled in A&E and Renal medicine before training in Anaesthesia and Critical Care, working in the East Midlands and London. She completed fellowships in critical care ultrasound and ECMO before taking up a Consultant post in Glenfield in November 2014.

Alongside general and cardiac intensive care duties, shifts for the East Midlands critical care transfer team and the occasional anaesthetic list, she retrieves patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Failure (SARF) both conventionally and using mobile ECMO from Glenfield’s catchment area. Her specialist interests lie in SARF and Adult ECMO alongside medical education and critical care follow-up. She is currently the deputy director for Adult ECMO at Glenfield Hospital and runs the ECMO follow-up clinic.

: @caz_sampson

Sachin Shah

Consultant Intensivist

Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at William Harvey Research Institute and Queen Mary’s University of London. Consultant in Adult Intensive Care, Anaesthesia and ECMO Barts Heart Centre, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.

Dr Shah completed his postgraduate training in Anaesthesia from the MS University of Baroda in India. After moving to United Kingdom, he trained at St George’s School of Anaesthesia and was awarded Fellowship by The Royal College of Anaesthetists in 2005. He has worked at major cardiothoracic and transplant centres in London (St. George’s Hospital, Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospital). He further trained in Intensive Care in Wessex and was awarded European Diploma and Fellowship of Faculty of Intensive Care.

Dr Shah was appointed as Consultant in Intensive Care, Anaesthesia and ECMO at The Royal Brompton Hospital in 2013. He subsequently moved to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 2016.

Dr Shah has a vast experience in Cardio-thoracic and General Intensive Care. He has been a part of NHS commissioned severe acute respiratory failure service since 2013. Dr Shah has managed several patients requiring variety of Extra-corporeal Life Support. He has conducted several mobile and air ECMO retrievals.

Since his appointment at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 2016, Dr Shah and his colleagues have been instrumental in setting up ECMO & Cardiogenic Shock service for severe acute cardio-respiratory failure. Currently, Barts Heart Centre at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital is one the largest Cardio-thoracic Centre in Europe.

Dr Shah is the director for ECMO service at Barts Health. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of American College of Cardiology (JACC) and BMJ case reports. He is also an examiner at the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM). He has lectured at various international meetings in Europe and Asia. Dr Shah is also lead for Advanced Critical Care Practitioner (ACCP) training at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

Sarah Wallace

Consultant Speech and Language Therapist

Sarah Wallace OBE FRCSLT is a Consultant Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Manchester. She specialises in Critical Care and has over 30 years of clinical experience as an SLT. After training in Manchester, Sarah has worked in hospitals and Non-Government Organisations in the UK, Singapore, Grenada (WI) and Cambodia. Whilst working clinically in cardiothoracic, ECMO and general critical care in Manchester, she also teaches and conducts research internationally, focussing on laryngeal injury, dysphagia and communication issues post intubation and tracheostomy. She has over 60 publications, several top cited articles winning awards from the BMJ and the ICS. She holds expert advisor roles with the Intensive Care Society (ICS), the National Tracheostomy Safety Project and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) and has contributed to many policies, guidelines and initiatives including GPICS, FEES, NCEPOD and the ICS National Rehabilitation Collaborative. Sarah is also an Associate Editor for JICS. She has pioneered new treatments for laryngeal recovery in ICU, setting up the first FEES service in Asia and the UK and supports SLT service development in the UK, Sweden and Chile. 

James Bruce

Clinical Occupational Therapist

James is an Occupational Therapist employed by the ICU at the Bristol Royal Infirmary Hospital. He is an ICU clinical specialist and in a unique role promoting early rehabilitation, humanistic care and rehabilitation education to his ICU team. He has had the opportunity to engage patients in early rehabilitation, screening rehabilitation needs and delivering rehabilitation through the post ICU inpatient journey.

James is interested in upper limb dysfunction post critical illness,  long term functional outcomes, and learning from patients to improve acute care. 

He has had the privilege of co-authoring the Occupational Therapy chapter for GPICS V2 & V3; GPICS Rehabilitation chapter V3; a member of the steering group for the upcoming NCEPOD rehabilitation post critical illness study; he supported the development of the AHP critical care professional development framework; is a member of the ICS AHP professional advisory group and co-chairs the AHP Critical Care Network for the South West of England.