Welcome back!
This month we kick off looking at an RCT which looks at whether we should convey patients with a ROSC from a likely cardiac cause (without a STEMI in their ECG) to a cardiac arrest centre, or whether they would be as well served at their local Emergency Department. This paper has huge potential implications for service design for cardiac arrest patients.
Next up we look at another RCT evaluating if patients with a suspected uncomplicated appendicitis who have urgent surgical intervention benefit in terms of a reduced perforation rate, when compared with those who have surgery within 24 hours.
Lastly we take a look at the use of bicarbonate, calcium and magnesium in cardiac arrest and see if there use is supported in a huge cardiac arrest registry.
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom!
Simon & Rob
Delivering excellent End of Life Care in the Emergency Care is a real challenge but also a huge privilege and has formed some of the most rewarding parts of our careers to date.
We've been really keen to End of Life Care as a topic for a while now. Many, if not all of you, will have been out to these patients or received them in your ED.
They aren’t simple cases to manage, with lots of issues around scope of practice, lack of alternative care pathways, confusion surrounding legal documentation and many studies have identified a lack of education around palliative care.
In this episode we’ll do our best to demystify those medico-legal terms, talk about care pathways and options that may be available to us, have a think about how we can talk with patients about death and then go on to discuss the clinical care we might need to deliver and the wider holistic nature of caring for these patients and their loved ones.
We're lucky enough to be joined by Ed Presswood, who's a palliative care consultant and clearly an expert on the topic. We gained a massive amount from this episode and we hope you find it really useful too.
You'll find the hyperlinks to some fantastic resources on the topic over on the webpage at TheResusRoom.
Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.
Enjoy!
Simon, Rob & James
Welcome back to the podcast, coming to you all the way from Australia!
Rob and James were fortunate enough to be invited to deliver the keynote and an airway masterclass at this year's Australian College of Paramedicine International Conference.
At what was an amazing meeting, they were lucky enough to be able to catch up with some of the fantastic speakers to hear the key parts of their talks. In this episode you'll hear from;
Richard Armour, Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance Paramedic at Ambulance Victoria and PhD Candidate at Monash University; Identifying patients requiring chest compressions at overdose prevention sites
Nick Roder, MICA Flight Paramedic Educator, Ambulance Victoria and Teaching Associate, Monash University; Intubation in the setting of airways and inhalation burns
Dr Tegwyn McManamny, Intensive Care Paramedic and Lead Patient Review Specialist, Ambulance Victoria; Care of the Older Person - Delirium and Paramedic Detective
Olivia Hedges, Palliative Care Connect Lead, Ambulance Victoria; Palliative Care Connect Program
Chelsea Lanos, Advanced Care & Community Paramedic Researcher; Organ donation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Canada - a potential role for paramedics
A huge thanks to ACP for the invite, Zoll for the support of the podcast and conference and to the fantastic speakers for giving ip their time to talk to us. We'll be back with another Roadside to Resus episode for you next week on End of Life Care.
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom and we'll see you back in September!
Rob & James
Welcome back to the podcast!
We're back with three really interesting papers after our summer break, with some great points to think about with regards to our practice and patient outcomes.
First up we take a look at the CT FIRST study which looks at the benefit of whole body CT in patients presenting with a ROSC after their out of hospital cardiac arrest with no obvious cause. Should we be more liberal in our imaging requests in this patient cohort?
Next up we have a think about thrombolysis for massive PEs. When it comes to these patients we have to consider the very real potential complications of thrombolysis and that can often dissuade us from treating them. This paper looks at an alternative dose in thrombolysis and describes some really interesting results.
Finally we take a look at a CT study which is scanning trauma patients after they have died. What injury patterns do they find, which injuries would have been amenable to treatment and are there any lessons on practice to be learnt?
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom and we'll see you back in September!
Simon & Rob
Welcome back, this is our last podcast before our short summer break!
We start off having a look at the physiological effects of prolonged resuscitation with a supraglottic device compared with endotracheal intubation, which raises some really interesting questions about our ongoing ventilation strategy in resuscitations.
Next up we look at an RCT comparing RSI to DSI in critically injured patients and the effect on peri-intubation hypoxia.
Finally we take a look at the practice of lateral canthotomy for retrobulbar haemorrhage/orbital compartment syndrome. How effective is the procedure and how competent are EM clinicians compared to Opthalmogists?
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom and we'll see you back in September!
Simon & Rob
So in this episode we’re going to run though the primary survey in trauma. This clinical assessment helps us identify and treat life threatening injuries and to rapidly intervene and correct them, so getting it right really matter1.
How this is done is hugely dependant upon the setting (either pre or in-hospital) as it is affected by the access to the patient, the number of people there to contribute to care and the challenges that the scene or hospital environment might hold.
We run through a model of primary survey that looks to gain as much information as possible in a rapid and effective pattern and discuss the slightly different approaches we all take, along with rationale behind them.
Finally we cover the communication of the primary survey to the team, strategies that we can undertake to achieve this and how this can affect the momentum and onwards care of the patient.
We found this a really useful topic to consider in some depth and we hope it's of use to you too!
Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.
Enjoy!
Simon, Rob & James
There have been some huge trials released over the last month and we've got three brilliant papers to discuss!
First up we take a look at an RCT on video versus direct laryngoscopy for patients requiring emergency intubation with the DEVICE trial. The VL versus DL debate has been ongoing for quite some time now, so is this a final nail in the coffin for DL?
Next up we take a look at an RCT of prehospital TXA use in patients at risk of bleeding from major trauma in the PATCH trial. The results seen in the trial look at a glance to oppose those seen in CRASH-2, so is this the end of TXA in this cohort of patients?
Finally we have a great paper giving us further information on whether we should we be initiating immediate antihypertensive treatment for patients admitted to hospital with asymptomatic hypertension.
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom.
Simon & Rob
This is the first of two episodes looking at pneumothoraces. In this episode we're going to start out by taking a look at traumatic pneumothoraces.
Traumatic pneumothoraces are present in about a fifth of multiple trauma patients, so it's not infrequent to come across them and they can obviously occur in those with isolated chest injury too. Thoracic trauma occurs in around two thirds of multi-trauma cases and is classified as the primary cause of death in a quarter of trauma patients.
The clinical assessment carries with it a fair amount of dogma, including looking for tensions with tracheal deviation, so we'll be running through what the signs we should look for actually mean.
Then we'll move on to a detailed discussion about investigation strategies before finally looking at the guidelines and evidence on the topic, including which we have to intervene with, which we probably shouldn't and those in which there is much uncertainty...
Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.
Enjoy!
Simon, Rob & James
ps; if you’re interested in getting your site involved with the CoMITED Trial then email comited-trial@bristol.ac.uk
Welcome back to the podcast and to the first episode in collaboration with our new sponsors Zoll, a huge thanks to them in their support of free open access medical education!
First off this month we return to the topic of rib fractures; with an apparent shift in practice to the surgical fixation of multiple rib fractures, we take a look at an early vs late approach and consider the impact these results may have on trauma systems.
Next up it's a prehospital RCT assessing the use of a prehospital strategy including a single troponin to rule out acute coronary syndrome. Will this prove safe when compared to an in hospital strategy and what impact does it have on prehospital resources?
Finally we look at ventilation rates in cardiac arrest management. For as long as we can remember the guidance has been to ventilate at ten breaths per minute, but will a strategy involving a faster ventilatory rate yield better results?
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom.
Simon & Rob
The last time we took a good look at head injuries was back in 2018 in our Roadside to Resus episodes and for all of the foundational stuff on incidence, assessment, management and loads more make sure you go and check that episode out.
But this episode is one of our new UPDATES episodes, because we’re pretty old now… and whilst we’ve been having a go at this for a while evidence and guidelines will have progressed, which clearly have implications on how we manage certain cases and that’s where these come in! So they’ll focus mainly on the last 5 years of practice.
The new NICE head injury guidance has just been released and it’s the first major overhaul since 2014. Now we know it’s a UK guideline, but there’s some really key practice updates and evidence in there that’s relevant irrespective of where you find yourself listening this!
So in this episode we're going to be having a look at the most recent TXA evidence, with in terms of indications, timing and dosing. We'll be having a look at the risk of intracerebral injury with regards to anticoagulants and antiplatelet agents and a few other bits and pieces that can help us inform and improve our care.
Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.
Enjoy!
Simon, Rob & James
This month we start off with a paper looking at the first pass success rate of intubation in cardiac arrest when performing continual CPR versus pausing.
We then come on to two really interesting diagnostic papers and our prehospital accuracy for identifying certain injuries; we take a look at the accuracy of HEMS clinicians in assessing the stability of a pelvic ring and subsequent application of a pelvic binder. And then we look at the accuracy of prehospital clincians in assessing for all life and limb threatening injuries.
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom.
Simon & Rob
Being in a situation of being unable to intubate and unable to oxygenate is an absolute time critical emergency.
Focus needs to be paid to the techniques and strategy to deal with this situation. But we also need to consider steps to ensure it occurs at a low frequency and our decision making and recognition of the situation happens quickly and simply.
In the episode we’re going to be talking about a number of other aspects that are relevant for all emergency providers, irrespective of whether you intubate or not, along with how those aspects translate into everyday practice.
We'll be covering bits around patient positioning, optimising simple ventilation via a BVM & supraglottics, all the way through to needle cricothyroidotomy and surgical airways.
Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.
Enjoy!
Simon, Rob & James
Welcome back to the podcast!
This month we start off thinking about sepsis, specifically fluid management and whether a restrictive approach to fluid resuscitation in combination with earlier vasopressors is advantageous over a liberal approach.
Next we have a look at a study evaluating the diagnostic benefit of ultrasound in the prehospital setting.
Finally we have a think about the benefit that traumatic brain injury patients may benefit from with regards to beta blocker therapy.
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom.
Simon & Rob
So NOF's aren't the most glamorous of topics to cover on a podcast, but the difference we can make to patients but refining our care is huge.
Neck of femur fractures have a high and increasing incidence. They occur predominantly in frail patients who have the greatest risk of complications, both from the injury and medical interventions.
In this episode we'll be running through their presentation, discuss both the clinical and radiological diagnostics. We'll also be looking in depth about both pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods of pain relief and have a think about where fascia-iliaca compartment blocks sit with regards to pre and in- hospital practice.
Finally we'll move on to the definitive surgical approach and in-hospital care.
Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.
Enjoy!
Simon, Rob & James
Welcome back to the podcast!
ECMO-CPR is a growing conversation in the world of cardiac arrest management. This month we have a look at a paper which adds some great evidence to the overall picture; with an RCT on ECPR in refractory of out of hospital cardiac arrest. How will this compare to the amazing results from the ARREST trial?
Next up is a really informative paper looking at the utility of ultrasound in suspected testicular torsion in children, this may make a difference to your investigation strategy.
Lastly we look a a paper describing the journey of a quality improvement project on paramedic intubation and see the phenomenal results that the method led to.
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom.
Simon & Rob
So in this episode we’re going to be covering crush injury.
When you think about it, visions of falling rocks, industrial accidents and high speed RTCs may come to mind, but actually a crush injury can be sustained in a huge variety of ways without such vivid circumstances.
Definitions according to the Faculty of Prehospital Care are that;
‘A crush injury is a direct injury resulting from crush.
Crush syndrome is the systemic manifestation of muscle cell damage resulting from pressure or crushing’
So in the episode we’re going to run through all of the bits that we normally cover, from pathophysiology, to presentation and onto treatment. We'll also be looking at the controversy and evidence behind tourniquet use, fluid therapy, electrolyte management and much, much more!
Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.
Enjoy!
Simon, Rob & James
Welcome back!
Three more papers for you this month to inform and improve our care in acute and critical illness.
First up and following on from the recent DoseVF paper, we take a look at a study looking at the combined effect of vector change, esmolol and capping adrenaline administration in refractory VF with regards patient out ones. Could this be associated with even better patient outcomes?
Secondly we take a look at the utility of fentanyl lozenges in providing effective analgesia to patients in remote settings. Does this have potential for both prehospital and in-hospital patients prior to iv access.
Finally we cover a paper looking at prehospital management of acute behavioural disturbance; the need for restraint, the need for sedation and the subsequent effects on the patients.
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom.
Simon & Rob
Welcome back to our first Roadside to Resus episode for 2023!
We're back with the huge topic that is COPD. In this episode we're going to delve into the depths of the topic, helping us to deliver the best possible care for this frequently encountered presentation.
Along with the standard coverage from incidence, to pathophysiology, to presentation and treatment, we'll also be covering those topics that you've specifically asked for;
Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.
Enjoy!
Simon, Rob & James
Welcome to 2023 and a very happy New Year!
We hope you managed to get some time with your loved ones over the festive period and we're back with the podcast again to kick off the new year.
First up, we take a look at a paper assessing whether there is benefit to treatment with thrombolytics or anticoagulants for patients in cardiac arrest due to a presumed MI.
Next up we look at the potential harm in administering steroids to patients with COVID-19 nor requiring supplemental oxygen.
Finally, we take a look at a paper assessing the potential use of point of care lactate in predicting the need for in-hospital blood product resuscitation.
Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom.
Simon & Rob