Terry Vanden Hoek

Dr. Terry Vanden Hoek (Photo: Ian Battaglia/UIC)

Dr. Terry Vanden Hoek’s research focuses on improving survival for cardiac arrest. A strong advocate of public education programs that teach simple, easy-to-learn life saving techniques, he leads the Illinois Heart Rescue program, which teaches cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the community.

Thousands of lives are lost each year in Illinois, where survival for out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest is less than 4 percent, explains Vanden Hoek.

“Most people don’t have heart attacks at the hospital. They have them at home or out in public,” he says.

“If more people are trained to recognize the signs of sudden cardiac arrest and can respond by performing CPR, more lives can be saved. Getting CPR in those first few minutes of sudden cardiac arrest is your best chance of surviving.”

Vanden Hoek has helped develop CPR guidelines for the American Heart Association. He is an expert in the biology of the heart and in preventing and treating heart attack.

 Subject areas

• Heart attack
• CPR
• Emergency medicine