JANE G. WIGGINTON, M.D., attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School (UTSWMS) in Dallas, Texas and then completed her Emergency Medicine residency at UTSWMS and the affiliated Parkland Health & Hospital System. She joined the faculty in 2000 and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Surgery and a Deputy Medical Director for EMS Biotel Services.
Dr. Wiggintons research has addressed controversial resuscitation/ethical issues such as the salvageability of patients with cardiac arrest presenting with pulseless electrical activity and asystole. Other studies have demonstrated counter-intuitive outcomes or unique findings regarding out-of-hospital resuscitation that have challenged conventional wisdom. One recent paper actually demonstrated better outcomes with manual compressions by EMS personnel versus mechanical (Thumper) compressions. Her highly notable study on gender-related differences in the presentation and outcomes of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, found that, in contrast to women with myocardial infarction and other related coronary artery syndromes, women had a better outcome following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Dr. Wigginton, herself a mother of six, has a strong interest in injury prevention and public access to defibrillation. She recently participated in the CPR and automated defibrillation training of the U.S. Surgeon General and three dozen senior staff members at the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. and is now focusing efforts on the use of alternative CPR devices such as the Active Compression-Decompression CPR device.
