UF Health Shands honored with award for excellence in life support

ECMO award

In October, UF Health Shands was honored by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) with the Gold Level ELSO Award for Excellence in Life Support. This award recognizes institutions that reach the highest level of performance, innovation, and quality in the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in its pediatric and adult programs.

A team of UF Health ECMO specialists, including our own Marc Maybauer, M.D., Ph.D., professor of anesthesiology and director of adult ECMO, and Giles Peek, M.D., professor of surgery and director of pediatric ECMO, accepted the award during the ELSO annual meeting in Detroit, MI.

The UF Department of Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine Fellowship offers a specialized ECMO track, culminating in obtaining an ELSO Adult ECMO Certification. Additionally, Maybauer, who is also the chief of our Critical Care Medicine Division, is currently collaborating with the Department of Emergency Medicine and the ECMO nursing team to create UF Health policy for extracorporeal CPR.