One of the lesser-known life-saving procedures of Loma Linda University Medical Center is about to get more attention. Television viewers in North America will be able to see LLUMC staff for the next two months on Animal Planet's "Venom ER" series.
One of the lesser-known life-saving procedures of Loma Linda University Medical Center is about to get more attention. Television viewers in North America will be able to see LLUMC staff for the next two months on Animal Planet’s “Venom ER” series. The show documents medical staff treating venomous snake bites and scorpion stings that took place during the summer of 2003.
Much of the training and education in the field of envenomation is overseen by Dr. Sean Bush, one of the world’s foremost authorities and star of the show. He hopes the series will be helpful for both people and wildlife.
“It demonstrates very good medical care of patients with venomous bites and stings by a stellar team of healthcare providers,” says Bush. “Maybe it will prevent some bites and stings as well.”
Bush says he’s been fascinated by snakes ever since his grandfather gave him a venomous snake as a pet at age five. “Actually it wasn’t dangerously venomous—it was a rear-fanged hognose snake,” he says. “When I became a physician, I wanted to learn everything there was to know about snakebite.”
The series was filmed at the medical center by the BBC’s WildVision department over a span of five months. The team filmed in the emergency department, admitting units, pharmacy and waiting rooms, as well as locales around Southern California.
“Venom ER” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. through June 1 on the Animal Planet channel.
Just last week, Bush directed the care of a man who had an anaphylactic reaction to snake venom. His airway swelled up so much that he couldn’t breathe and the medical team couldn’t pass a tube through his mouth to help him. Doctors performed an emergency cricothyroidotomy—cut a hole in his throat—to save his life. He survived and was recently discharged. “The hole in his throat is healing up now and he’s doing very well,” says Bush.
Medical residents are provided with extensive wilderness medicine opportunities with nearby San Bernardino National Forest, coastal communities, the Mojave Desert, and regional mountains. The international EM program at LLUMC integrates with wilderness medicine by providing opportunities for residents to participate in expeditions in high altitude, jungle, and desert environments overseas.
Bush has been bitten by non-venomous snakes hundreds of times. To him it’s no more consequential than being scratched by a kitten. He’s never been bitten by a dangerously venomous snake. “I intend to avoid that encounter,” he says. “That could be extremely consequential. I try never to handle venomous snakes.”
He says venom is being researched and used for medical treatment of strokes, heart attacks, cancer, hypertension, and pain, among other things.
“God created the snake—He must have had a reason for doing so,” says Bush. “Snakes are in the Bible. Everyone remembers the serpent that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. Elsewhere in the Bible (Exodus 7:9), the serpent was used to demonstrate a miracle of God—when Moses threw his staff on the ground and it turned into a serpent.
“I think snakes continue to reveal one of God’s miracles in their beauty, mystery and power.”
