Who We Are

Board of Directors, Executive Committee

Keith Van Meter, MD, FACEP

Keith Van Meter, MD completed his undergraduate education at Miami University at Oxford, Ohio in 1968 with a degree in chemistry and English. He graduated from George Washington University School of Medicine in 1973 with a degree in medicine. He trained at Tulane University School of Medicine/Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is board certified in Emergency Medicine with subspecialty board certification in Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine.

From 1989 to the present, Dr. Van Meter has served as the Chief of the Section of Emergency Medicine in the Department of Medicine at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the Medical Director of a 140-physician Emergency Medicine group in south Louisiana and Mississippi (Keith Van Meter & Associates). He acted as the Medical Director of the Jo Ellen Smith Medical Center Multiplace Hyperbaric Medicine Unit from 1978 until the hospital closed in 1998. He has served as the Medical Director of the Baromedical Research Institute Hyperbaric Laboratory in New Orleans, Louisiana since 1980.

Dr. Van Meter served on a task force under Dr. Sam Poole and Dr. Norman McSwain to develop medical support planning for NASA for astronauts aboard a space station from 2000-2002. In his private practice, he has treated over 600 hundred commercial divers in the Gulf of Mexico who suffered from acute decompression sickness or arterial gas embolism. Dr. Van Meter’s primary research interest is the application of hyperbaric oxygen in the ACLS, PALS and ATLS in cardiopulmonary arrest utilizing a swine model.

Dr. Van Meter’s professional assignments and organizations include the following:

• Member of the advisory editorial board for Wounds journal – 1990-present
• Member, UHMS Hyperbaric Oxygen Committee – 1983-present
• Board Member, NBDHMT – 1991-present
• Member-at-Large, Executive Committee of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (two terms)
• Affiliate/Regional faculty for the American Heart Association for 25 years
• Current Instructor, Advanced Cardiac Life Support
• Current Instructor, Pediatric Life Support
• Current Instructor, Advanced Trauma Life Support
• Student, Shell Bergan/Aberdeen diving physician course – 1978
• Student, UHMS/NOAA Diving Physician Course – 1979

Dr. Van Meter’s recent publications and abstracts include the following:

• "Use of high-dose hyperbaric oxygen in a controlled, randomized animal trial to resuscitate swine after a prolonged cardiopulmonary arrest.": Presented at 1998 ACEP Annual Research Forum. Winner of Best Paper.
• K Van Mater. Carbon monoxide poisoning. In: Emergency Medicine. Eds. Tintinalli, et al. 6th edition. McGraw Hill: New York, 2003, pp 1238-1242.
• DM Barratt, PG Harch, K Van Meter. Decompression illness in divers: a review of the literature. The Neurologist 2002;8:186-202.
• K Van Meter, LD Weiss, PG Harch. HBO in Emergency Medicine. In: Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine. Eds. KK Jain et al. 4th edition. Hogrefe and Huber: New York 2004, pp 421-449.
• L Garcia-Covarrubias, NE McSwain, K Van Meter, RM Bell. Adjuvant hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the management of crush injury and traumatic ischemia: an evidence-based approach. American Surgeon 2005;71:144-151.
• K Van Meter. A systematic review of the application of hyperbaric oxygen in the treatment of severe anemia: an evidence-based approach. UHM 2005;12(1):61-83.
• K Van Meter, J Vazquez, J Serio, C Ross, C Fife. Emergency verification by “n=2” of the N.O. Way Out empiric decompression table rules for recovery of deep air surface supplied divers with unintended prolonged bottom times (abstract #40). Presented at the UHMS Annual Scientific Symposium, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2005.