RIVER CAMPUS MEDICAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM (M.E.R.T.) CO-SPONSORSHIP

This semester, MAPS was able to collaborate with the River-Campus Medical Emergency Response Team (RC-MERT) on the significance of emergency medicine. RC-MERT is an on campus group that delivers both medical assistance and medical care to the University of Rochester community. They play vital roles on campus by providing both quality and professional emergency pre-hospital medical care to the UR community throughout the school year.

On this day, MERT were able to display a glimpse of emergency medical care at the basic life support level. As part of the workshop, they showcased to those in attendance both the proper ways to go about performing cardiopulmonary resuscitations (CPRs) and situations that would initiate the usage of a CPR. When performing CPR, it’s critical to position the hill of the hands right at the center of the breast bone of the patient, interlock the fingers and elbows, position self to about ninety degrees over the patient, and use your body weight to compress down the chest while looking down.

Once these basics were laid out, members were informally trained on the correct and standard postures of performing an effective CPR on a CPR manikin. Each procedure was different for both adult and infant manikins as the adult would need more pressure with chest compressions while the fragile infant would require much less but effective pressure to the chest.

Another essential technique for assessing emergency techniques that was explained was the use of Automated External Defibrillator or AED. The use of AED is important for the well being of the affected victim because it delivers shock through the chest to the heart. The shock applied restores an irregular heartbeat into a normal rhythm. It helps defibrillate the victim’s heart and its absence can almost reduce the victim’s rate of survival. One of the best things about this collaboration was that everyone got hands on experience on how to perform these CPR techniques and several emergency techniques.