The 6th Annual Safar Symposium was held on May 15, 2008 in the Starzl Biomedical Science Tower. 

Left to Right: Melinda Hamilton, MD, MSc Marnie Burkett, RN, MSN, CCRN Paul E. Phrampus, MD, FACEP Vinay Nadkarni, MD, FAAP, FCCM, FAHA Noel Zuckerbraun, MD, MPH Erin Phrampus, MD Jennifer Arnold, MD, FAAP, MSc Jan Eswein, RN, MSN, CCRN

The morning session focused on "Neurocritical Careand Neuroanesthesia for Infants and Children."  Dr. Vinay Nadkarni, of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, gave an excellent view on the future of resuscitation of children in a talk titled "Pediatric Resuscitation in the 21st Century."  Following him was Dr. Clifton Callaway of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  Dr. Callaway's presentation on "Implementation of Therapeutic Hypothermia at the Health System Level" described his remarkable accomplishment of spearheading implementation of hypothermia UPMC-wide.  The third presentation was by Dr. Peter Davis in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.  Dr. Davis' presentation entitled "Anesthetic Considerations Regarding Infants:  A Clinical Perspective" gave some important clinical perspectives on the issue of anesthesia-induced apoptosis in pediatrics. The morning concluded with Dr. Mioara Manole, Clinical Research Scholar at the Safar Center.  This presentation was on "Cerebral Blood Flow after Experimental Asphyxial Cardiac Arrest:  A New Therapeutic Target."  Dr. Manole was the recipient of last year's Nancy Caroline Fellowship Award.  Her new findings on the effect of the novel resuscitation solution polynitroxyl albumin on cerebral blood flow were exciting.

Following the morning session was the presentation of the 6th Nancy Caroline Fellowship Award.  This year's award was presented to Dr. Tomas Drabek, Research Fellow at the Safar Center and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology.  Congratulations to Tomas. 

The morning program was immediately followed by the 28th Peter and Eva Safar Annual Lectureship in Medical Sciences and Humanities.  This year's esteemed speaker was John W. Olney, MD, John P. Feighner Professor of Psychiatry, Neuropathology and Neuropsychopharmacology at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri.  Dr. Olney spoke about his seminal series of work on both excitotoxicity and anesthetic-induced developmental apoptosis in an address titled "Excitotoxic and Apoptotic Neurodegeneration-Causal Mechanisms and Preventive Strategies."

WISER hosted the afternoon session of the 6th Annual Safar Symposium on May 15, 2008. The use of simulation in pediatric medicine was the focus of this year's symposium.

Individuals gathered at WISER in the afternoon to hear lectures on Advances in Pediatric Simulation Education and Assessment. This year's afternoon lectures were broadcast live via the WISER website and gave viewers an opportunity to ask questions to the presenters.

Presenters for the afternoon session were:

- Jan Eswein, RN, MSN, CCRN and Marnie Burkett, RN, MSN, CCRN. "Crisis Recognition and Management for Nurses: What We Expected and a Few Surprises."

- Vinay Nadkarni, MD, FAAP, FCCM, FAHA-Medical Director, Center for Simulation, Advanced Education, and Innovation Education, Children's Hospital Philadelphia. "Use of Healthcare Failure Mode Effect Analysis to Develop Scripted Debriefing Tools for PALS Team Training."

- Jennifer Arnold, MD, FAAP, MSc-Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, Stony Brook University Medical Center. "Improving Neonatal Airway Skills with Simulation."

- Noel Zuckerbraun, MD, MPH-Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Director, Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Erin Phrampus, MD-Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. "Room for Improvement: Transforming Pediatric Emergency Medicine Education for Residents and Fellows."

- Melinda Hamilton, MD, MSc-Assistant Professor of Critical Care Medicine and Pediatrics Department of Critical Care Medicine UPMC Associate Director of Pediatrics, Peter M. Winter Institute for Simulation Education and Research. "ECMOSim: Training to Care for the Sickest of the Sick."

To view these presentations, please visit http://www.wiser.pitt.edu/sites/wiser/safar08/