A Young Person’s Experience of Critical Illness Natalie May & Roisin McNamara discuss a young person’s experience of critical illness. They are joined by Ema, an 11-year-old girl who had a scary time when she was diagnosed with tracheitis. Experiencing critical illness is scary for anyone. However, when you are a young person, this terrifying…
Is Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) a problem? Maxime Valois and John Christian Fox argue the role of POCUS in critical care. Maxime makes the case for POCUS being a problem. POCUS changes everything. It has helped physicians throughout the world to make easier, more accurate and faster diagnoses. It has contributed to enhance the…
Is Emergency Medicine a Failed Paradigm by Scott Weingart and Simon Carley Scott presents the argument that whilst Emergency Physicians are amazing, as it stands, Emergency Medicine is failing. Scott presents the system as it should be. This involves stabilising the critically ill before admission to the ICU, seeing sick patients in appropriate time and…
Anaesthetics in Bariatric Surgery: Ben Shippey Ben Shippey discusses the important anaesthetic considerations in bariatric surgery. Obesity surgery can induce a strong response in healthcare professionals. These biases must be overcome to facilitate efficient and safe services. Evidently, Bariatric surgery provides many challenges. To begin with, healthcare professionals can associate negative thoughts with obesity. Secondly,…
The Risks of Surgery: John Carlisle John Carlisle asks the big question – what is the risk of surgery? It is a big question that holds implications for everyone involved in caring for patients. Like John, patients want to live a long and happy life. They would like to know whether surgery enhances their chances…
The Mindset of a Trauma Surgeon: Karim Brohi Karim Brohi gives an insight into his mindset as a trauma surgeon, drawing on lessons from Zen philosophy. During this talk he discusses how we can develop the self confidence that helps us cope with stressful clinical situations. The word confidence is often talked about in a…
A Revised Algorithm for PEA Cardiac Arrest: Haney Mallemat Haney Mallemat discusses the treatment for PEA cardiac arrest. Patients who present with pulseless electrical activity (PEA) arrest have a high mortality. The treatment of PEA requires finding and reversing the underlying cause; therefore a simple and rapid approach is required. Traditionally we were taught to…
The Right Ventricle in Pulmonary Hypertension: John Greenwood John Greenwood takes a broad view on pulmonary hypertension and explores the heart-lung interactions that occur in this disease process. Pulmonary hypertension commonly occurs when managing a patient with an acute critical illness. Moreover, pulmonary hypertension has a devastating impact on cardiac function. Whilst we recognise the…
Resuscitation in Paediatric Cardiac Patients: Michele Domico Michele Domico presents a talk on the pitfalls of common paediatric resuscitative manoeuvres in paediatric cardiac patients. Emergency and critical care physicians are all well accustomed to items such as oxygen, bolus adrenaline, intubation and cardioversion. However, as Michele explains, these ‘go to’ interventions may in fact be…
Cardiac Surgery – What can go wrong? Deirdre Murphy presents everything that can go wrong in cardiac surgery. Deirdre reinforces that cardiac surgery is by no means a safe procedure! Murphy’s Law stipulates everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Subsequently, Finagle’s corollary will tell us, it will be at the worst possible moment.…
