Associate Professor Hergen Buscher

Dr Hergen Buscher started his medical career in Intensive Care and Anaesthesia in 1994 in Germany.  He defended his thesis on ‘Work of Breathing and Pressure-Time-Product in ICU Patients’ and was awarded an academic Doctor Degree (University of Göttingen). In the German academic system this is regarded as the first of two steps towards professorial honours (there is no PhD degree in Germany).

While working as an ECMO Fellow in Leicester, UK at the time of the CESAR trial, Dr Buscher became interested in extracorporeal life support (ECLS).

Since 2014, he is leading the intensive care research at St Vincent’s Hospital.  One of the main focuses here is to further explore the critical care of patients with heart and lung transplantation, ventricular assist devices and ECLS. His main area of research interest centres around the blood management and anticoagulation during ECLS and the use of ECLS during cardiac arrest.

He became the principal investigator in 20 multi and single centre studies and represented Australia in the steering committee of the Extracorporeal Life Support Organisation (Asio-Pacific Chapter) from 2013-2017.

As member of the Sydney ECLS research group he participated in several multicentre studies on the use of ECLS during cardiac arrest. This included the prospective evaluation of its use and one of the first economic evaluations worldwide.

He participated successful in more than 10 grant applications for investigator-initiated studies, peer reviews for five scientific journals, published more than 30 original papers and was cited about 600 times. The current h-index is 16. Invited speaker at more than 20 national and international conferences.

First and senior author of original research (detailed information on ResearchGate):

1. Harley, O., Reynolds, C., Nair, P., & Buscher, H. (2019). Long-Term Survival, Posttraumatic Stress, and Quality of Life post Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. ASAIO J.
2. Connolly, S. M., Granger, E., Hayward, C., Huang, D., Kerr, S., McCanny, P., & Buscher, H. (2019). Long-Term Outcome in Severe Left Ventricular Primary Graft Dysfunction Post Cardiac Transplantation Supported by Early Use of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. Transplantation.
3. Buscher H, Zhang D, Nair P. A pilot, randomised controlled trial of a rotational thromboelastometry-based algorithm to treat bleeding episodes in extracorporeal life support: the TEM Protocol in ECLS Study (TEMPEST). Crit Care Resusc. 2017;19(Suppl 1):29-36
4. Smith M, Vukomanovic A, Brodie D, Thiagarajan R, Rycus P, Buscher H. Duration of veno-arterial extracorporeal life support (VA ECMO) and outcome: an analysis of the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) registry. Crit Care. 2017;21(1):45.
5. Buscher H, Vukomanovic A, Benzimra M, Okada K, Nair P. Blood and Anticoagulation Management in Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Surgical and Nonsurgical Patients: A Single-Center Retrospective Review. J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 2017;31(3):869-75.
6. Venkatesh, K., P. S. Nair, D. J. Hoechter, and H. Buscher. Current Limitations of the Assessment of Haemostasis in Adult Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Patients and the Role of Point-of-Care Testing. Anaesth Intensive Care 44, no. 6 (Nov 2016): 669-80.
7. Buscher, H, Vaidiyanathan, S, Al-Soufi, S, Nguyen, D N, Breeding, J, Rycus, P, & Nair, P. (2013). Sedation practice in veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation: an international survey. ASAIO J, 59(6), 636-641.
8. Buscher H., Valta P., Sydow M., Thies K., Burchardi H.: Pressure signal transmission of five commercially available oesophageal balloon catheters.
   Intensive Care Med. 2000; 26: 462-465
9. Buscher H, Sydow M, Thies K, Zinserling J, Hinz J, Burchardi H: Work of breathing in patients with and without COPD during mechanical ventilation with low-level PEEP and pressure support. Intensivmed 1999; 36: 197-202