In honor of Latin AIDS Awareness Day on Oct. 15, April and Alicia bring in an expert to discuss mass infectious disease and the brave researchers who cure it. Meet Dr. Roberta Luskin-Hawk, a Chicago-based Sound Physicians clinical leader and infectious disease specialist whose fascination with curing patients placed her at the center of the 1980s American AIDS/HIV epidemic. Hear about her journey to the top of her field and the stigmas she broke along the way.

For the love of the cure | feat. Dr. Roberta Luskin-Hawk

In this episode, Dr. Sergio Zanotti discusses ECPR–Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. ECPR is still be considered a niche therapy, but its relevance and availability are increasing. He is joined by Dr. Adam Green, a practicing intensivist at Cooper University Health Care and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (CMSRU). Dr. Green is the director of research for the division of Critical Care and has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications. He has been part of the ECMO team at Cooper since its inception. 

Additional resources:
Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation for refractory cardiac arrest. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine 2025: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213260025001225  

Effect of Intra-arrest Transport, Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, and Immediate Invasive Assessment and Treatment on Functional Neurologic Outcome in Refractory Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest. JAMA 2022: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2789313  

Association between increasing institutional experience with ECPR and outcomes in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A nationwide multicenter observational study in Japan (the JAAM–OHCA registry) RESUSCITATION 2025: https://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(24)00862-1/fulltext  

Early Extracorporeal CPR for Refractory Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest. N Eng J of Med 2023: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2204511  


Books mentioned in this episode: 

The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug. By S. Strathdee and T Patterson: https://amzn.to/3Hxjmez 

ECPR

Sound Physicians

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