The University of Pittsburgh Post-Cardiac Arrest Service (PCAS) is a multidisciplinary group of clinicians and researchers from the Departments of Emergency Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, Neurology, Cardiology, Radiology, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation dedicated to improving care and outcomes for patients who survive cardiac arrest. Founded in 2007 at UPMC Presbyterian, PCAS provides initial resuscitation, in-hospital care, and long-term follow-up to over 400 patients each year. Patients treated by PCAS demonstrate the best survival and long-term outcomes in the region.
Our mission is to optimize outcomes for current and future cardiac arrest patients and their families, locally and around the world, by educating providers and the public and transforming resuscitation science.
Our vision is to improve outcomes for patients with cardiac arrest by discovering, delivering, and disseminating the best possible care.
Affiliated Faculty
Valerie Arias, MD, Neurocritical Care
Clifton Callaway, MD, PhD, Emergency Medicine
Patrick Coppler, PA-C, Emergency Medicine
Joseph Darby, MD, Neurocritical Care
Genevieve Dobrushin, DNP, CRNP, Emergency Medicine
Ankur Doshi, MD, Emergency Medicine
Byron Drumheller, MD, Emergency Medicine
Jonathan Elmer, MD, MS, Emergency Medicine and Neurocritical Care
Laura Faiver, MD, Neurocritical Care
Adam Frisch, MD, MS, Emergency Medicine
Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse, MD, Neurology
Francis Guyette, MD, MS, MPH, Emergency Medicine
A. Murat Kaynar, MD, MPH, Neurocritical Care
Thomas Lynch, MD, Emergency Medicine
Joseph Mettenburg, MD, PhD, Radiology
Masashi Okubo, MD, MS, Emergency Medicine
Cecelia Ratay, DNP, CRNP, Emergency Medicine
Zachary Rhinehart, MD, Cardiology
Kelly Sawyer, MD, MS, Emergency Medicine
Kimberly Schatz, DNP, CRNP, Emergency Medicine
Mark Schmidhofer, MD, Cardiac Critical Care
Alexis Steinberg, MD, MS, Neurocritical Care
Jonathan Tam, MD, MS, Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Medicine
Amy Wagner, MD, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Neuroscience
Alexandra Weissman, MD, MS, MPH, Emergency Medicine
The SPARC trial is trying to find out whether patients who are immediately transferred to a specialty hospital after cardiac arrest recover better than those who are cared for at the nearest capable hospital.