Resuscitation Expert Vinay Nadkarni, MD, Receives AAP Award

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Vinay M. Nadkarni, MD, recently received a Distinguished Career Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Medical director of the Center for Simulation, Advanced Education, and Innovation, Dr. Nakarni is a leading critical care and resuscitation science researcher.

Dr. Nadkarni received his award at the recent AAP National Conference and Exhibition. Held October 26-30 in Orlando, Fla., the AAP conference brought together more than 10,000 pediatricians and providers for discussions, poster presentations, and networking events. Dr. Nadkarni received his award from the AAP’s Section on Critical Care, which has the mission of optimizing “optimize the care of critically ill and injured children of all ages through the educational and professional support of its members.”

“Dr. Nadkarni is an internationally recognized physician-scientist with a longstanding commitment to the discovery, translation, and implementation of shock, trauma, and resuscitation science,” said chief of Critical Care Medicine at Children’s Hospital Robert Berg, MD.

After receiving his MD from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1984, Dr. Nadkarni continued his training at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, joining The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2001. In addition to his roles at CHOP, Dr. Nadkarni is also associate director of The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Resuscitation Science, and has contributed his time to serving on the boards and committees of a number of professional and charitable organizations, including Operation Smile.

Earlier this year, Drs. Nadkarni and Berg contributed to a study published in Circulation that showed extending cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) longer than previously thought useful can save lives in children and adults. After analyzing the hospital records of 3,419 children in the U.S. and Canada from 2000 through 2009, the investigators found that among children who suffered in-hospital cardiac arrest, more children than expected survived after prolonged CPR. The conventional thinking has been that CPR is futile after 20 minutes, but these results challenge that, said Dr. Berg.

Since the Circulation study’s publication, Dr. Nadkarni has contributed to or led a number of other studies, including investigations of improving chest compression quality and a quantitative analysis of CPR in children during in-hospital cardiac arrests, both published in Resuscitation, as well as leading a study in Critical Care in Medicine of organ transplantation following cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Dr. Nadkarni’s “efforts and passion for advancing the field of critical care medicine worldwide have facilitated learning, idea generation, and he has championed change which has helped save lives,” Dr. Berg said.