Breaking VAD, Must Know Management of LVAD Patients in the ED

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

4:10pm – 4:30pm ET

Location: Trade - Lobby Level

CE: 0.25 CME Credit

Speaker(s)

Leen Alblaihed, MBBS MHA FAAEM (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland

Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Session Moderator(s)

Matthew Graber, MD, PhD, FAAEM

Residency Program Director
Abrazo Health
Goodyear, Arizona

Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Disclosure(s):

Leen Alblaihed, MBBS MHA FAAEM: No financial relationships to disclose

More than 2,500 people with heart failure in the United States receive a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) each year. It is almost inevitable that you will encounter at least one LVAD patient, or more, during your career.
In this talk, I will present a simplified explanation of what an LVAD does, how it works, and more importantly a simplified algorithm to follow that will help you correctly manage and treat the patient when things go awry.

Learning Objectives:

demonstrate understanding of basic LVAD function
perform bedside assessment and diagnose LVAD related problems
recall the management algorithm when managing a patient with an LVAD