Dr. Susan Dunmire This is Me

Education

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1. 1. www.saem.org

   www.saem.org/SAEMDNN/Default.a - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/16/2007   Last Visited: 8/16/2007

   Director(s):Susan Dunmire, MD dunmiresm@msx.upmc.edu Rotation specifics: Experience in acute care in and out of hospital. Includes core lectures, prehospital and ED clinical time, ACLS, wound repair, toxicology, shock/trauma techniques

2. 2. SAEM

   www.saem.org/rescat/up.htm - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/10/2006   Last Visited: 7/10/2006

   Director(s):Susan Dunmire, MD dunmiresm@msx.upmc.edu Rotation specifics: Experience in acute care in and out of hospital. Includes core lectures, prehospital and ED clinical time, ACLS, wound repair, toxicology, shock/trauma techniques

3. 3. O-R Online | Surviving summer's swelter

   www.observer-reporter.com/2764 - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/1/2002   Last Visited: 8/1/2002

   "It goes from the top down," said Dr. Susan Dunmire, an attending physician in the emergency department of UPMC- Presbyterian hospital, Pittsburgh.
   
   Dehydration and hyperthermia first impair the brain, confusing some sufferers to the point that they can't save themselves. Dunmire has seen patients who were convinced they were actually cold.
   
   "They turn up the thermostat and turn on the burners on the stove, hoping to warm up," she said.
   
   With the onset of heat stroke, excessive sweating tapers off to nothing, and the skin becomes hot, dry and red. Blood pressure may be uncommonly high or low and body temperature often rises to 105 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.
   
   Sufferers are prone to vomiting and lapses of consciousness. They may experience seizures when they are cooled down.
   
   ...
   Dunmire said her emergency department sees one or two cases of heat stroke each week during especially hot weather. Patients are fed fluids intravenously and exposed to cooled oxygen. In some cases, they are stripped of their clothing and sprayed with a cool mist.
   
   Especially at risk for heat illnesses are people taking medications that inhibit sweating. Several psychiatric and high blood pressure medications are among the many that fall into that category, Dunmire said. Patients should consult their physicians if they're unsure how medications will affect them in hot weather.
   
   Also susceptible are children, who don't perspire as freely as adults, and infants, who can't articulate how they feel.
   
   Athletes, as well as laborers and soldiers, often don't have the option of escaping to an air-conditioned mall or playing in the lawn sprinklers on a hot day.