We think it is best practice to hang dopamine and have it ready for infusion on every cardiac arrest patient after achieving ROSC. Even patients whose initial BP after ROSC is within normal limits, will likely become hypotensive over time and we see many of them become progressively more hypotensive and bradycardic during transport until they eventually rearrest. These patients invariably have underlying physiologic derangements associated with and/or exacerbated by their cardiac arrest and will likely all eventually need augmentation of their blood pressure. Additionally, it’s important to remember that these patients have just suffered massive neurologic insult and so optimizing their oxygenation/ventilation and blood pressure is imperative to survival with good neurologic outcome. Therefore, we want to be able to recognize and treat hypotension immediately and we think the best way to do this is to have your dopamine infusion ready to go.
