Critical Care

Advanced Practice Airway Mastery Series: Predicting Cardiac Arrest After Intubation

Intubation is a potentially dangerous procedure which may result in rapid hemodynamic collapse and cardiac arrest in the critically ill. This week we summarize the results of a large retrospective study to determine the clinical factors associated with cardiac arrest after intubation.

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Advanced Practice - Airway Mastery Series! Preoxygenation strategies

This post is a a summary of a portion of Dr Byrne's airway talk from last month's ResusEM conference at the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. New techniques for preoxygenation before intubation can help to prolong time to desaturation and make this potentially dangerous procedure safer than ever!

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Critical Care Controversies! Vitamin C+Thiamine+Hydrocortisone for Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock

Can cheap, safe infusions of vitamins really succeed where so many hundreds of novel therapies have failed? The recent article in Chest by Dr. Paul Merik has taken the critical care world by storm, with reported mortality rates of 8.5% in patients treated with a simple vitamin C/thiamine cocktail (with none of the deaths directly attributable to sepsis). The skepticism and push-back have been nearly unprecedented, especially on #FOAMed. Whether you're a skeptic or an early adopter, you need to understand the basis for the debate by checking out this high-yield summary.

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Airway Mastery Series: Mastering the Bougie

You are intubating a sick patient in the ED via direct laryngoscopy. After opening the airway, sweeping the tongue with your blade, inserting into the vallecula, and lifting at the precisely correct angle your eyes behold....well...not the vocal cords! Maybe the arytenoid cartilages if you're lucky (aka Cormack Lehane 3 or 4 view). But wait, you aren't finished yet! You reach into your back pocket and remove your trusty bougie...

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