Recent Conferences

RESUS 2013 took place on Saturday April 27th in Limerick Race Course and was attended by almost 400 delegates. Research presentations in resuscitation science, emergency medicine and prehospital care at RESUS 2013 were facilitated by CPR. Following abstract adjudication a total of eight oral presentations and four posters were accepted for presentation on the day. The Scientific Assembly was chaired by Dr. Niamh Cummins and prizes were judged by international guest speakers Professor Bryan McNally and Dr. John McCarthy. The award for Best Poster Presentation was won by Niamh O’Leary for her poster “An Audit of Irish Red Cross (IRC) Patient Care Interventions for Patients Complaining of Pain”. Siobhan Maguire was the runner-up for Best Oral Presentation for her talk entitled “Is Adrenaline in our Future?”. The award for Best Oral Presentation went to Siobhan Masterson for her presentation “OHCAR, Europe and the Big Messages”.
Congratulations also to all involved in the EMS Gathering which took place on May 15th & 16th in Killarney. The event was a great success featuring a wide variety of topics by renowned national and international speakers and an innovative leisure with learning programme which was very much enjoyed by all.


SciFest Award for Eamonn Sweeney

Congratulations to Eamonn Sweeney who recently won a regional SciFest Award for his project entitled “Investigating the Effects of a Metronome, Delivered by a Mobile Phone Speaker on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Quality and Attitudes towards Delivering Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in Untrained Bystanders”. Eamonn is a transition year student at Jesus and Mary Secondary School, Enniscrone, Co. Sligo where he is taught by Ms. Helena Ryder. Eamonn is a member of the Order of Malta (Ballina Unit) and is also the youngest researcher to date that has been supported by CPR – the future is bright!

Farewell & Welcome

After four very impressive years Jennifer Fitzgerald is leaving CPR for a new research post in GEMS. Jennifer has been a fantastic colleague and she will be greatly missed in CPR. Thank you Jennifer and best of luck! Bernie Woods will be taking up this post shortly and we look forward to welcoming Bernie to CPR.

Website & Social Media

If you haven’t seen our new and improved website yet then please visit us on www.ul.ie/cpr Our social media is also regularly updated with EMS items of interest so remember to follow us on Twitter @CPR_UL and find us on Facebook at Centre for Prehospital Research UL.

Quarterly Research Update

The following articles were published recently and may be of interest;

Bigham et al 2013 Expanding Paramedic Scope of Practice in the Community: A Systematic Review of the Literature. Prehospital Emergency Care 17; 3: 361-372
A recent review describing the current international state of knowledge on the safety and effectiveness of community paramedicine.
Fogarty et al 2013 The 'Jedward' versus the 'Mohawk': a prospective study on a paediatric distraction technique. Emergency Medicine Journal (Online April 2013).
An Irish study looking at the use of a standard plastic glove inflated as a balloon as a distraction technique for children with an acute injury.

Lee et al 2013 Influence of nationwide policy on citizens' awareness and willingness to perform bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Resuscitation 84; 7: 889-894
In South Korea over a 4-year period the proportion of the population with cardiopulmonary resuscitation training increased from 27% to 49% and awareness of AEDs increased from 3% to 33%.

While these articles are published in reputable peer-reviewed journals in many cases the research presented is in the preliminary stages. It is the responsibility of practitioners to ensure that they only operate within their own scope of practise as defined by the PHECC CPGs.