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UNDERSEA & HYPSERBARIC MEDICINE CLINICAL FACILITIES

PRIMARY TRAINING SITE :   WEST JEFFERSON MEDICAL CENTER

The primary training site is West Jefferson Medical Center, a parish owned and operated medical center that functions as a tertiary care private institution.  It is distinguished by its U.S. News and World Reports Top 50 Hospital Ranking in the United States for the last three years. The Hyperbaric Medicine Department is the Divers Alert Network (DAN) Referral Site for all sport diving accidents in the South Central United States and Gulf of Mexico, strengthens an array of excellent programs.  The hospital features an air ambulance service that delivers injured commercial divers to the hyperbaric unit.  The Hyperbaric and Wound Care Department is equipped with a 32 foot dual-lock multiplace chamber, two luxurious 40 inch diameter monoplace chambers, and the full range of support equipment sufficient to provide a single site comprehensive training program for the Fellows.  Departmental patients span the entire range of hyperbaric treated diagnoses, including fitness to dive (divers and chamber personnel), decompression illness, problem wounds, hyperbaric complications, critical illness, and toxic gas exposure.  The fellows see over 6,000 wound care visits yearly, supervise over 5,000 hyperbaric oxygen treatments, and perform in excess of 150 transcutaneous oxygen measurements.

 

AFFILIATED TRAINING SITE :   LSU HYPERBARIC MEDICINE DEPARTMENT

The affiliated training site is the outpatient Hyperbaric Medicine Department of the Louisiana Interim Hospital.  This is a facility operates a 12 hour clinic Mondy - Friday and sees primarily the indigent population of the New Orleans Metro area.  Referrals are accepted from all New Orleans and outlying hospitals. Current census is over 9,000 patient care visits yearly divided between Hyperbaric Medicine and Wound Care Patients.  The department consists of two Sechrist monoplace chambers that run at full capacity.  The physical therapy, occupational therapy, and footcare / orthotic department of MCLNO is contiguous with the hyperbaric department. Comprehensive foot woundcare is tightly coordinated with this department and utilizes on-site fabrication of a wide range of foot orthotics to offload and accommodate extremity ulcers. The facility will soon house all of the MCLNO outpatient clinics such that referrals and continuity of care between the surgical and medical specialties will be maximized.

 

 

 RESEARCH TRAINING SITE:  BAROMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Additionally, the program is associated with the Baromedical Research Institute (BRI) of New Orleans, a not-for-profit hyperbaric research corporation founded by Dr. Van Meter in the 1980s. The BRI has a legacy of cutting edge hyperbaric research that includes resuscitation, chronic brain injury, envenomation, decompression illness, mucormycosis, near-infrared spectroscopy, and exsanguination. It has the highest animal laboratory accreditation (AAALAC - Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care) and is staffed by a full-time Ph.D in biomedical engineering. The most recent research includes a national award winning project in HBOT-induced cardiac resuscitation of swine after 25 minutes of warm cardiac arrest, the first ever demonstration of improvement (HBOT-induced) of chronic brain injury in animals, and HBOT in exsanguination.

 

FUTURE TRAINING SITES :   UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

Soon the LSU Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship may add a fourth site,the inpatient hyperbaric medicine service of University Hospital. This service was available at Charity Hospital before Hurricane Katrina and was operating at near full capacity treating the full spectrum of emergency and chronic hyperbaric medicine indications. Due to Charity Hospital's Level I Trauma status, the hyperbaric medicine service saw a high proportion of blast and compartment syndrome cases as well as carbon monoxide poisoning.  It is expected that this experience will continue with resumption of services. The department is expected to feature 2 monoplace chambers.  It is organizationally and conceptually an integral part of the emergency department which is the training site for the renowned LSU Emergency Medicine Residency. The Hyperbaric Department is staffed by emergency medicine and internal medicine physicians who also specialize in hyperbaric medicine.  Fellows are exposed to an astounding range of pathology, which has characterized Charity Hospital and its training programs for decades.