Sudden unexpected death, in terms of absolute loss of life, poses our greatest single medical problem today. As our knowledge of the mechanisms of cardiac arrest continues to increase, it is encouraging to note how it can be applied to clinical situations. A good example is the well-documented story of succinylcholine-induced hyperkalemia and the propensity of patients with severe trauma and burns to develop cardiac arrest.
There seems to be little question that an effective hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation committee can contribute siginificantly to a reduction in mortality from sudden death within the hospital.
Relatively low rates of successful resuscitation in hospital art partially due to a lack of realization of therapeutic requirements for specific situations. Broad generalizations are helpful for educational pruposes, but the field of cardiac resuscitation has become sufficiently sophisticated to require in-depth knowledge of modivications in resuscitation efforts as individually required.
Therefore, the authors attempted to evaluate the 40 cases of emergency calls for the anesthesiologists during the period of August 1975 to July 1976.
Evaluated results were as follows;
1. Incidence of emergency calls to the anesthesiologist was 24.4%(164 death vs 40 calls).
2. The method of emergency call was not efficiently established among the teaching hospitals yet.
3. None of the cardiopulmonary resuscitation committees was established and operating among the teaching hospitals now.
4. A cardiopulmonary resuscitation committee should be responsible for providing a written plan of action, CPR training and practice sessions, and a recore of CPR occurences available for periodic audit and review.
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