Ryan Huebinger receives AHA’s Young Investigator Award for cardiac arrest research

Ryan Huebinger, MD, assistant professor of emergency medicine with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. (Photo by UTHealth Houston)

For his research analyzing the time it takes to effectively administer anti-arrhythmic medication to cardiac arrest patients, Ryan Huebinger, MD, with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston) has received the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Young Investigator Award.

Huebinger, assistant professor of emergency medicine with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, was honored with the award for his scientific abstract titled “Time to Anti-Arrhythmic for Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest.” The abstract was published in the Dec. 16 edition of Circulation, a journal by the AHA and presented at the annual Resuscitation Science Symposium.

In the paper, Huebinger and his team analyzed datasets of more than 449,000 adult, non-traumatic cardiac arrests to determine the time it takes to administer anti-arrhythmic medication, which are used to treat abnormal rhythms of the heart. The study showed a strong link between critical minutes to administer antiarrhythmic medications and the chance of resuming a sustained heart rhythm that perfuses the body after cardiac arrest, known as return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC).

The AHA’s Early Career Investigator Awards are designed to recognize research endeavors by early career PhDs or MDs who are still in training or have completed training within the last four years, or PhDs and/or MDs who are still within the first four years of their first faculty appointment.

Huebinger received his medical degree from UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2013 before completing his residency in emergency medicine at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. He joined the McGovern Medical School faculty in 2018.

The senior author on the award-winning paper was Bentley Bobrow, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at McGovern Medical School. Co-authors from McGovern Medical School include emergency medicine faculty Kevin Schulz, MD, clinical associate professor; Summer Chavez, DO, MPH, assistant professor; and Hei Kit Chan, MPH, graduate research assistant.

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