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| A Matter of Life and Death
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By Pamila Price - Photography by Taylor Sherrill
When a medical emergency arises, there is no time to waste. Every minute counts, and immediate care saves millions of lives.
That’s why the opening of a new home for the Institute of Critical Care Medicine in Rancho Mirage is important not only for the Coachella Valley, but also for the world.
The facts speak for themselves. According to the American Heart Association, in the United States alone, sudden cardiac arrest claims anywhere from 350,000 to 450,000 lives annually and is responsible for more than half of all deaths due to cardiovascular disease. As statistics mount, the medical profession is hard pressed to come up with immediate solutions on how to save lives.
The crucial window of time after cardiac arrest is known as “the golden 10 minutes.” What happens during these 10 minutes determines patient survival.
The Institute of Critical Care Medicine, founded in 1961 at the University of Southern California, opened in Palm Springs in 1992, consolidating programs from Los Angeles and Chicago and headed by Max Harry Weil, a Swiss-born physician known throughout the medical profession as the “father of critical care medicine.”
Work conducted at the institute has included educating physicians, nurses, and other health-care professionals in life-saving care at the institute and at conferences worldwide. It also has included designing and building improved devices for rapid diagnosis, patient monitoring, and treatment, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
“Before 1959, there were no ICUs, but the concept was not original,” Weil says. “Florence, [Italy], in the 1860s, established the principles of moment-to-moment care during the Crimean War, but it took generations before it was refined.”
Weil’s commitment to saving lives started early. “When I was 5 years old, I had no other thoughts but medicine,” he says. He left his birthplace of Baden, Switzerland — a wellknown European spa and healing center — and moved to the United States in 1937. His medical education brought him to the University of Minnesota Medical School, after which he joined the Cardiology Unit at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
He eventually moved to California, where he met the late Dr. Herbert Shubin, a fellow cardiologist, and began researching the role of shock in cardiac failure. Their joint mission was to determine why people died following a heart attack. In order to find answers, they began monitoring blood pressure, heartbeat, and breathing. From these beginnings, the concept of “critical care” evolved. Today intensive-care beds take up 15 to 20 percent of all beds in American hospitals.
The new, state-of-the-art home for the institute — a 25,000-square-foot, three-level building at Bob Hope Drive and Ginger Rogers Road — symbolizes a new era for the future of critical care medicine. Now 78 years old, Weil has seen his dream become a reality.
Since its founding, the institute has played a major role in the development and improvement of automated external defibrillators, methods for immediate diagnosis of shock in battle, and the portable chest compressor. Just since moving to Palm Springs, it has generated more than 400 contributions to medical literature and 10 patents on life-saving drugs and medical devices.
It took more than a thirst for knowledge to build the new facility. Thanks to the 1988 donation of 12 acres and a capital-building campaign that raised $6.9 million for construction, the project moved forward.
Bill Narva, a retired Navy Medical Corp physician who served on the institute’s early advisory board, considers Weil a “guru.”
“He is one of the most forceful, direct people I have ever met. He is a one-man show, a true leader and motivator,” he says. Locally, Weil became concerned “when it was obvious patients a long way from ambulance services were at risk.”
Acting on this need, a team was sent out to “down valley” country clubs to see what could be done. During those crucial “golden 10 minutes,” automated external defibrillators, in conjunction with cardio pulmonary resuscitation, could stabilize the rhythm of the heartbeat until an ambulance arrived.
“The layman could be taught how to administer this care, and this was a magnifi- cent addition to the concept of cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” Narva says.
Septic shock (a potentially lethal drop in blood pressure due to overwhelming infection) is now the major cause of complications suffered by patients critically ill or injured and hospitalized in intensive care units. While monitoring vital signs of patients at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Weil developed treatment guidelines. Fifty years later, the research continues, with the Institute of Critical Care Medicine on the cutting edge.
As you enter the structure, the institute makes a simple statement: that of being an inviting space infused with natural lighting. However, this is not a patient facility, but rather a center where internationally renowned experts will gather from around the world to study and share research. In fact, the second-floor library includes offices for visiting doctors and scientists.
Also on the second level is an engineering laboratory developing and testing mechanical devices such as the institute’s automatic heart and chest compressor. The basement-level’s radio isotopic and bacteriological/viral research laboratory performs clinical testing, which may include developing drugs, procedures, and applications of mechanics developed in the engineering lab. Likewise, the engineering lab may apply developments of the clinical testing lab.
The ground level is devoted to administration offices, including those of Weil; Dr. Wanchun Tang, a graduate of Shanghai Second Medical University who joined the institute in 1988 and now serves as executive vice president; Shijie Sun, also a graduate of Shanghai Second Medical University and now associate professor/laboratory director; and Bary Freet, former chief of the Palm Springs Fire Department and now the institute’s executive director and chief operating officer. They share the office wing with Jeanne Parrish, former mayor of Rancho Mirage and now director of docents, and Joe Bisara, vice president of research and engineering.
The library windows overlook a vast landscape waiting for development.
“There is ample space for residential facilities, a science center, and possibly casitas for visiting fellows,” Freet says. The institute provides a fellowship program that mandates doctors and medical engineers spend from 18 months to two years of training at the institute. Currently, Freet says, “We have trainees from Italy, China, Taiwan, and Venezuela.”
“Maybe someday we will even see a medical school here,” Weil adds.
With increased community participation as part of the institute’s expansion, the Coachella Valley will be hearing more about the facility. Friends of the Institute of Critical Care Medicine, headed by local philanthropist Lori Sarner, are devoting time toward volunteer and docent programs. Offering CPR training, the institute has already reached more than 6,000 students in schools throughout the Coachella Valley and placed automated external defibrillators in theaters, schools, country clubs, gated communities, senior centers, museums, and churches, as well as with first responder emergency medical teams. A study released earlier this year revealed that twice as many cardiac arrest victims survived when treated with defibrillators as those treated solely with CPR.
“AEDs are standard equipment on all commercial aircraft,” says the Weil, who travels extensively to share his knowledge. In March, he traveled to China for a conference on the 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing. The institute is combining talents with the Chinese Ministry of Health to perfect CPR techniques as part of their preparedness plan.
In May, the institute and Sun Yat-sen University in China signed an agreement to develop a program for stem cell research at the institute.
“Their advanced research on stem cells for the past 10 years is now to be applied to improve treatment of heart attacks and heart failure, and especially restoring the function for the heart after CPR,” Tang says. Palm Desert residents Marilyn and Jerry Blue have underwritten the major cost to build a lab at the institute to develop the cells provided by the university
As new breakthroughs emanate from the institute, Rancho Mirage will join Weil on the world stage.
What Goes On Inside
The Institute of Critical Care Medicine advances the practice of critical care medicine by:
- Improving patient care by advancing the understanding of life-threatening conditions and their treatment with clinical and laboratory research;
- Improving the effectiveness of bedside medical procedures, including humane and ethical aspects of care;
- Designing, building, and testing devices for rapid diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment;
- Educating health-care professionals in life-saving care;
- Maintaining a global network of research on life-saving medical diagnosis and management.
Jewels in the Crown
The history of the Institute of Critical Care Medicine is marked with numerous achievements, including the following:
- First to conceive and implement intensive care monitoring units;
- Helped create a life-saving diagnostic tool for shock victims;
- Helped create an automatic heart and chest compressor to revive heart attack and drowning victims;
- Developed a drug to safely increase heartbeat and blood flow after the heartbeat is restarted;
- Trained more than 300 fellows, who return to their home countries as heads of hospitals and university medical departments.
Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, but this is not necessarily a comprehensive representation this field. Appearance on this list does not imply endorsement or recommendation by Desert Publications Inc. In the case of plastic/reconstructive and cosmetic surgery, a listing here does not imply the completion of formal training in a board certifiable plastic surgery training program. Unless otherwise noted, all telephone numbers are in the 760 calling area. |
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