We have some exciting news!
Thanks to donors like you, TB Vets Charitable Foundation is giving $120,000 over the next three years to support the newly created TB Vets Charitable Foundation Professorship in Respiratory Care at Simon Fraser University (SFU). In partnership with Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation, this will fund the research of Dr. Elizabeth Rohrs, PhD.
Dr. Rohrs is passionate about finding a better way for patients to transition off ventilators. Her years of caring for patients as a respiratory therapist have inspired her research to reduce patient suffering caused by mechanical ventilation.
Unfortunately, 30% of patients struggle to come off ventilators. Over time, ventilated patients develop weakness in their respiratory muscles resulting in an extended dependence on a breathing machine, which can even result in permanent dependence. The longer a patient is on mechanical ventilation, the greater the risk of ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI). VILI can cause multisystem organ failure and death.
Dr. Rohrs wants to understand how brain-muscle coordination affects weaning (the process of coming off a ventilator) and to find new signs of early weaning failure, so respiratory therapists do not over-exhaust patients and cause further damage. Her research will build a systematic body of evidence that will have the potential to completely transform how patients are transitioned off ventilators.
Thank you for supporting the future of respiratory care!
