01 Nov Wendell Bliss, MD: A 2024 Unsung Hero

Dr. Bliss has an easy-going nature & puts patients & staff at ease & makes them comfortable. He is friendly & gets along with everyone. He is hard-working but doesn’t let the stress show at work – he treats everyone like a friend. His open & friendly nature tends to hide his excellent clinic bedside skills & talents in POCUS. Dr Bliss completed an emergency ultrasound fellowship in July 2024.

During the time of the actual 2024 solar eclipse, at our solo coverage, 6 bed, rural, critical access hospital ED, Dr Bliss performed a resuscitative hysterotomy on a pregnant patient in cardiac arrest in a valiant attempt to save the pregnant mother’s & 24-week fetus’s life. Ultimately these efforts were unsuccessful; but these were impressive efforts made by Dr Bliss in a facility that has no L & D, no NICU, no pediatricians or obstetricians & no other physicians at that time in the hospital.

He then led 2 debriefings for all the staff involved to try to come to grips with this traumatic event. His calm, collected & compassionate manner was really helpful at the time of the resuscitation & for the ED staff to also recover from the tragic situation.

Recipient Bio:
Dr Bliss graduated the University of Vermont Emergency Medicine residency program in July 2023. He finished the University of Vermont Emergency Ultrasound fellowship program in July 2024. He is an assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Vermont & attending physician at the University of Vermont Medical Center and Alice Hyde Medical Center, Elizabethtown Community Hospital & Ticonderoga Emergency Departments in upstate NY.

– Jordan R Ship, MD FACEP