Doctors practice placing pacemakers

September 22, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Akron Beacon Journal

AKRON

How can a novice doctor learn to implant a pacemaker through a vein to save a patient with a deadly slow heart rate?

PacerMan to the rescue.

Dr. Rami A. Ahmed, an emergency medicine physician and simulation medical director at Summa Health System, worked with Summa Simulation manager S. Scott Atkinson to create the PacerMan device after failing to find a training model for the delicate procedure.

Dr. Ahmed and Atkinson are partners in the venture with Summa, which has obtained a provisional patent for the invention.

The partners are in talks with undisclosed companies on a licensing agreement to make and market PacerMan to residency training programs worldwide, Dr. Ahmed said.

PacerMan is an example of the type of entrepreneurial spirit the Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron is trying to build.

The BioInnovation Institute is a partnership among Summa, Akron General Health System, Akron Children’s Hospital, the University of Akron and the Northeast Ohio Medical University (formerly NEOUCOM) to foster research, economic development and job creation tied to the medical field.

Dr. Ahmed and Atkinson are leaders with the institute’s Center for Simulation and Integrated Healthcare Education.

The institute’s Medical Device Development Center worked with the two inventors to fine-tune the PacerMan prototype and develop a business plan.

The PacerMan prototype looks like a neck and torso without arms and legs. The simulator uses an actual monitor and equipment to allow doctors-in-training to practice carefully inserting the pacemaker wire through a vein in the neck or chest.

The wire is then inserted by the trainee into a simulated blood-filled chamber within the chest cavity to practice setting the pacemaker to restore a proper heart rhythm.

A transvenous pacemaker insertion is a risky procedure that is done only a few times a month at Summa Akron City Hospital’s emergency room for patients experiencing extremely low heart rhythms that don’t respond to medication or other less invasive measures, Dr. Ahmed said.

The temporary pacemaker allows blood to keep flowing to the brain and other vital organs until the patient can have a permanent pacemaker surgically implanted in the chest.