b'At times, on rounds, we would discuss cardiac arrest patients and their low odds of survival. There was a sense among some on the team that such aggressive care may be futile for a group of patients who would never make a meaningful recovery. I quickly found that nothing turns around a nihilistic discussion on the odds of surviving a cardiac arrest than the medical student on the team chiming in that they are a cardiac arrest survivor. As a fourth-year medical student, one of the cardiologists invited me to fill the guest patient role in the cardiac arrest lecture to the second-year medical students. In both instances, exposing these physicians in training to my story forever highlighted the potential for a full recovery from cardiac arrest. These were my first glimpses into the value of sharing stories to highlight the expectation that survival from cardiac arrest with an excellent outcome should be the norm, not the exception. One year after my cardiac arrest, I graduated medical school with honors and left for emergency medicine residency in my home state of Oregon at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), a national leader in sudden cardiac arrest research. During my intern year, one of my co-residents, aware of my cardiac arrest after I published an article on my experience, reached out to let me know they had found another one. That is when I met John, another cardiac arrest survivor from an unknown cause in his 20s with an ICD. The tremendous value of sharing such an experience with another became immediately apparent. In the years since, John, my wife, and I added more to our group of survivors and co-survivors. We, along with Dr. Mohamud Daya, began the Oregon Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, the first state-wide chapter of the national Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation (SCAF), and our focus was on supporting cardiac arrest survivors and co-survivors. Last year, SCAF cemented its commitment to survivors and co-survivors by starting the Cardiac Arrest Survivor Alliance (casahearts.org), an online support community. These peer support resources helped move me further along in my path of recovery while allowing many like myself to help guide new survivors and co-survivors through the unique challenges of cardiac arrest survival.A Change in Career FocusAfter my cardiac arrest, I shifted my research and career focus from preventative cardiology to the treatment of sudden cardiac arrest with the hopes of improving outcomes. As a physician-scientist at OHSU, I get to work at one of the leading medical centers for cardiac arrest research while also practicing as a physician in one of the highest-volume receiving hospitals for cardiac arrest patients. Most importantly, my wife and I have welcomed three children since my cardiac arrest. As I get close to eight years since my cardiac arrest, I now know dozens of survivors, including patients I had the privilege of treating. Since my arrest in 2016, Recovery has also been added as a link in the chain of survival, and both the American Heart Association and CARES have rightly increased their focus on Survivorship efforts.Looking to the FutureI was fortunate to have a cardiac arrest in Frederick, Maryland, where Frederick Fire and Rescue treated me. Before my cardiac arrest, Frederick had invested in the training of their paramedics by participating in the Resuscitation Academy and had been tracking their cardiac arrest performance through CARES. Nationally, the National Institutes of Health, particularly through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, supported cardiac arrest research for years before my arrest, including establishing the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium to conduct numerous clinical trials, each leading to incremental improvements in evidence-based care for cardiac arrest patients. Any one of these investments could have been what saved my life as an individual and, collectively, these investments are what will increase cardiac arrest survivalJosh and Katherine Luptonnationally.Improving cardiac arrest survival to reach the American Heart Associations 2030 goals requires efforts across each link in the chain of survival and a monumental investment in research and quality improvement. Novel system and community-level ideas may be necessary, such as legislative efforts to provide CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) training with any drivers license renewal, funding for AEDs in all law enforcement vehicles, and further support for CARES beyond the Cardiovascular Advances in Research and Opportunities Legacy (CAROL) Act. My hope for the near future is that anyone discharged alive after a cardiac arrest is referred to resources on survivorship (casahearts.org), as the best way to accomplish these goals is to leverage the stories and experiences of survivors and co-survivors.8 9'