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Our research group at the Shock Trauma ICU of Intermountain Medical Center is focused on understanding how the cardiovascular system (heart and arteries) responds to the stresses of severe illness or injury. We use echocardiography (ultrasound of the heart) and complex analysis of rhythms in the vitals signs and organ function of patients with severe illness (primarily sepsis or life-threatening infection) and injury (usually blunt trauma, such as in an automobile accident). We are attempting to understand better how to tailor our treatments to specific patients. Our broader research group also has decades of experience in researching and treating the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and are founding members of the ARDS Network and the NIH’s PETAL Network.

With the goal of understanding and improving clinical outcomes in patients with life-threatening illness, the research and clinical groups at Intermountain Healthcare are committed to improving the quality of medicine and using computers and explicit protocols to improve how we care for patients.

Because I believe that we are people before we are patients, I am also committed to humane, thoughtful analysis of how we ought to behave as healthcare workers caring for seriously ill patients. I perform this research and writing as a faculty member in Medical Ethics and Humanities at the University of Utah. This commitment led to our founding the Center for Humanizing Critical Care at Intermountain, which is designed to develop approaches–derived, tested, and validated with rigorous methodology–that will help to put a human face on critical illness and the intensive care unit. The Center currently supports several interrelated projects with funding from NHLBI, the Intermountain Research and Medical Foundation, and collaborations with other researchers in this domain.

Students interested in working with my research group should contact me directly.