Robert A. Berg, MD, FAHA, FAAP, MCCM

Bob Berg focused his career on saving lives of critically ill children through outstanding inter-disciplinary clinical care, state-of-the-art clinical and laboratory research, training the next generation of pediatric critical care leaders, continuous quality improvement, and nurturing career development of faculty and trainees. He was recruited to CHOP as the Russell Raphaely Endowed Chair and Chief of CCM from 2008-2022.

Bob has been, and continues to be, a funded laboratory and clinical resuscitation scientist for >30 years, focusing on CPR hemodynamics, hands-only CPR, vasopressors during CPR, post-arrest myocardial dysfunction, VF/defibrillation, in-hospital CPR, prolonged duration CPR, E-CPR and personalized physiologic-directed CPR. Investigations by Bob and his colleagues have led to landmark publications in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, JAMA, Circulation, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Critical Care, Anesthesiology, Critical Care Medicine, and American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He has authored >600 peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Since 2012, Bob and his colleagues at the CHOP Resuscitation Science Center have led seminal translational investigations resulting in landmark publications demonstrating that physiology-focused hemodynamic-directed CPR improves survival and favorable neurologic outcomes. This team then demonstrated that attaining adequate diastolic blood pressure thresholds during pediatric in-hospital CPR is associated with survival to hospital discharge and survival with favorable neurologic outcome, and they validated these findings in a separate multi-center clinical study. They subsequently demonstrated that attaining mean ETCO2 >20mmHg during CPR is similarly associated with these outcomes.

Bob is most proud of mentoring >100 PCCM trainees and faculty members. Most of these mentees have established themselves as leaders in our field. In the last 10 years, 10 CHOP faculty members received K-awards, and many more have successfully competed for R-level grants. Bob received the CHOP Mentor Award in 2014.

Bob has received numerous national and international resuscitation science honors, highlighted by the 2006 American Heart Association's Lifetime Achievement Award as a Cardiac Resuscitation Scientist, the 2010 International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation's "Giant in CPR" award, the 2019 Society of Critical Care Medicine's Shubin-Weil Master Clinician/Teacher Award, and the 2022 American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Critical Care Distinguished Career Award.