Betsy Anne Hunt, MD

Dr. Elizabeth Anne Hunt is an associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She serves as the David S. and Marilyn M. Zamierowski Director of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Simulation Center. She specializes in pediatric critical care.Dr. Hunt completed residencies in internal medicine and pediatrics at Duke University and conducted a fellowship in pediatric critical care at Johns Hopkins. Additionally, she earned an M.P.H. with a concentration in humanitarian assistance and a Ph.D. in clinical epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her thesis focused on utilizing high fidelity simulation to measure performance during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. She described the "loss of the first responder instinct" for those that respond to in-hospital cardiac arrests. Her work revealed that healthcare providers with hands-on training with defibrillators are 87% faster at defibrillation than those without hands-on training. Dr. Hunt also observed that those that link out-loud verbalizations of their observations with actions i.e. "There's no pulse, I'm starting compressions" are faster to start compressions than those that do not. She coined the term "Action-Linked Phrases" to teach this concept. These concepts are embedded in a "First Five Minutes" Curriculum that has been associated with decreased time to defibrillation and increased survival to discharge. Dr. Hunt has developed and rigorously studied innovative ways to teach more effectively. She has described how to make resuscitation more contextually relevant to the clinical location where the learner population works so that their skills will translate to the bedside. She has created a teaching style called "Rapid Cycle Deliberate Practice" that has been well received internationally. Her more recent work has focused on debriefing in-hospital cardiac arrests and a Resuscitation Quality Improvement program at Johns Hopkins and sharing lessons learned internationally. Dr. Hunt has served as a volunteer on many committees and writing groups for the American Heart Association and for the Get With The Guidelines - Resuscitation. She was a co-founder and Senior Co-Chair for the International Network for Simulation-based Pediatric Innovation, Research and Education.