Airway Manager: Emergency Authors

Dr. Calvin A. Brown III is the Vice Chair for Network Development at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Airway management is a challenging field, and Brown finds that time is often a precious resource. It’s important to always keep critical thinking skills sharp. “Emergency physicians are fortunate when there is time for a methodical, planned approach, however, we are often called upon to act suddenly with little or no information,” he explains. “Clear decision making and foundational knowledge of airway management will provide the best outcome for your patient.”

Outside of the office, Brown has recently re-entered the world of competitive Masters Track and Field.

Ron M. Walls is Chief Operating Officer of Mass General Brigham and Neskey Family Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was the original Editor-in-Chief of what is now the Walls Manual of Emergency Airway Management (5e), and is Senior Editor of Rosen’s Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice. He is a peer reviewer for The New England Journal of Medicine, the six emergency medicine journals in North America and Europe and the journal, Anesthesia.

Dr. Walls has researched, published and taught in the area of Emergency Medicine, with an emphasis on emergency airway management, for more than twenty years. He was honored with the American College of Emergency Physicians Outstanding Contributions to Education Award, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s Hal Jayne Academic Excellence Award and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine’s David K. Wagner Award.  In 2006, Dr. Walls became the first emergency physician to achieve the rank of Professor at Harvard Medical School.

He is founder of NEAR (National Emergency Airway Registry), a multi-center, international emergency airway research project that has produced over 25 original reports. Dr. Walls has over 180 scientific publications, including 19 textbooks. He has been an invited Visiting Professor at over 30 institutions.

Robert C. Luten has dedicated his career to the advancement of pediatric emergency care. He is considered a pioneer in the specialty of pediatric emergency medicine and was a founding board member of that specialty. He has taken a leadership role in childhood emergency initiatives in the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians and other national organizations.

He was a charter member of the Pediatric Subcommittee on Childhood Resuscitation of the American Heart Association, co-author and co-founder of PALS and leading author and editor of APLS jointly sponsored by the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is a past president of the Society for Pediatric Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Luten has edited several textbooks and is widely published in the area of childhood emergencies. He is the author and principal instructor of the pediatric section of The Difficult Airway Course: Emergency. As creator and author of the studies which formed the basis of the Broselow Tape and the Broselow-Luten Color Coding Kids System, Dr. Luten has dramatically improved the practice of pediatric emergency medicine over the course of his career.

Dr. Luten is currently professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at the University of Florida, Shands in Jacksonville, FL. He is board certified in Emergency Medicine, Pediatrics, and Pediatric Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Jarrod Mosier is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Medicine at the University of Arizona. He is board certified in both Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Medicine. He is clinically active in the ICU, ED, and serves as the medical director of the adult ECMO program. Dr. Mosier is a fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine and the American College of Emergency Physicians.

When it comes to airway management, Mosier finds it helpful to mentally visualize the procedure as you would if you were playing a sport. This allows planning ahead, so you don’t have to make crucial decisions in the heat of the moment. His favorite part about teaching is hearing from past students. For him, hearing that a technique or piece of advice he gave a student ended up saving a life is the most rewarding part of his job.

Mosier enjoys photography, particularly landscape photos. He has a website for his work.

Dr. Nathan Mick is the Associate Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs at Maine Medical Center and Professor of Emergency Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Published with The Difficult Airway Course, he was an Associate Editor on The Walls Manual of Emergency Airway Management.

Teaching is in Dr. Mick’s DNA, as 19 of his closest relatives are public school teachers. His favorite part about the job is meeting people with different experiences and backgrounds, as it always offers a new perspective on the field. He finds working in emergency medicine to be humbling, and learns every day. “I remember most of my critical pediatric resuscitations from my career and carry the lessons learned from each forward with me to this day.”

Dr. Mick did his undergraduate studies at Notre Dame, and boxed for the Bengal Bouts while attending.

Dr. Joshua Nagler is an Attending Physician in Emergency Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is also an Associate Professor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He has received over ten teaching awards, including the Fellow Teaching Award from Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Nagler finds that when working with children, airway systems must be managed differently. “For providers who infrequently care for critically ill children, it is important to develop a systematic approach to pediatric airway management and be comfortable with that system,” he recommends. When it comes to teaching, his favorite part of the job is seeing students’ faces light up when they solve challenging issues on their own, and realize that they have the knowledge they need in them.

Dr. Nagler is a big fan of the Boston Red Sox, and for the past nine years has traveled to an away game for the team with his son.

Dr. John Sakles is a Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Arizona.  While at the University of Arizona, he helped create a database that logs every intubation. These logs have turned into published work, and help to track the way they have improved their practices for airway management.

“Airway management is one of the most important skills in emergency medicine,” Sakles says. He finds that it important to always keep up with the latest research in the field, so that you never fall behind on new techniques that could potentially be life-saving. “There is so much to learn that has come out just in the last few years, so stay up to date with all the new technology and advancements.”

Sakles loves teaching because it gives him the chance to make a positive impact on more lives. He often finds that right after he teaches a course, someone will reach out and say they immediately used the skills they learned at work.