When you’re in the midst of putting on an educational course
it’s easy to be caught up in deadlines and the various tasks associated with
pulling everything together for a successful outcome. The completion of an
intensive, multi-day course invariably leads to a grateful sigh of relief and –
hopefully – to honest self-reflection and evaluating how to improve. Putting an
entire course creation and evolution into perspective should yield some
gratifying insights and milestones that one has accomplished. So it is with the
Life Support Technologies group (LST) accredited five-day Introduction to
Hyperbaric Medicine course. From 1993 to
2007, LST co-sponsored courses created and taught by the late Eric P. Kindwall,
MD; since 2007, LST has directly conducted twenty-four (24) of its own courses,
which over seven hundred medical professionals have attended. Physicians and allied health professionals
who attend the courses receive Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits or
Continuing Educational Units (CEU). How did this course come about, how has it
improved, and what is its role and importance in the medical community?
Dr. Kindwall would teach most of his 5-day course by
himself. Today, that feat seems all the
more Herculean as LST has expanded the course faculty to nine since Dr.
Kindwall’s passing in 2012. Dr. Kindwall
is considered by many to be the Father of Hyperbaric Medicine in the United
States. He and his colleague, Harry T.
Whelan, MD, edited and contributed to what many consider the seminal text on
the subject: Hyperbaric Medicine Practice (Best Publishing Company.
Flagstaff, AZ: 1994). This text is now in its Third Edition.
The biggest changes in LST’s course started in 2007 when Dr.
Kindwall announced that he would soon be retiring. This meant that the Life Support Technologies group
would have to create its own hyperbaric medicine course and obtain accreditation
independently for that new course. What
ensued was a lengthy, tedious process of filing paperwork, and making requested
modifications in order to obtain accreditation from the Undersea &
Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) and also from the National Board of Diving
& Hyperbaric Medical Technology (NBDHMT).
Throughout the years, LST’s 40-hour Introduction to Hyperbaric
Medicine course (taught over a 5-day period) has attracted medical
professionals from across the United States and from overseas. LST offers the course four times a year at
its partner hospital facilities in New York, New Jersey and in Connecticut, on
a rotating basis. (Currently, LST provides
hyperbaric services at nine (9) hospitals in the NY-NJ-CT region.) The
LST course meets the educational guidelines mandated by the Centers for Medicare
& Medicaid Service (CMS) for hyperbaric education; it provides the
foundation for Physicians, Nurses, Respiratory Therapists, Paramedics,
Emergency Medical Technicians, Hyperbaric Technicians, and other clinical
professional who are either working in, or planning to enter, the field of
Hyperbaric Medicine. The course is a
pathway toward achieving professional certification in this growing field.
Since 2007, improvements to LST’s and Dr. Kindwall’s jointly
sponsored Hyperbaric Medicine course were made by expanding the faculty so that
there is a broad representation of expertise and many, many “man-years” of
hyperbaric, clinical, management, and diving experience. Over the years, each faculty member has
updated and improved their presentation(s) to ensure the most current information
and greater synergy among lectures. All
attendees have the opportunity to visit a working hyperbaric chamber room
during off-hours, as well as “hands-on” participation with Trans-Cutaneous
Oxygen Monitoring (TCOM).
Currently, only a few companies in the United States are
offering regularly scheduled, accredited hyperbaric medicine courses. Based on attendee feedback and word-of-mouth
referrals, LST’s course is considered by many to be a benchmark of excellence
in the field.
The LST Team that puts together and teaches the Introduction
to Hyperbaric Medicine course is justifiably proud of the course creation and its
on-going success.
About the Life Support Technologies Group (LST)
The Life Support Technologies Group (LST) is a Tarrytown,
NY-based medical and life-support engineering company specializing in Advanced
Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine Services to hospitals in the NY, NJ, CT region. LST has been in business for 20 years and
currently provides services to 9 hospitals.
Glenn
Butler, CEO
Life
Support Technologies Group
(914)
333-8412
For more information about Life Support Technologies, go to:
