Prairie Doc Perspective Week of June 9th, 2024

By the late

Richard P. Holm, MD

My first experience with cardiopulmonary resuscitation was during the summer of 1969. I was an orderly in a Minneapolis intensive care unit (ICU) when my patient stopped breathing. I called for help and provided mouth-to-mouth breathing until the team arrived. Later the doctor told me I saved the patient’s life, further convincing me that medicine was my life’s purpose.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is the act of rhythmically pushing on the chest and breathing into the mouth of a person whose heartbeat and breathing has ceased. CPR can result in enough cir...