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Biological Basis for Blood-Brain Barrier

In briskly breaking news, UCEM’s brainiac neurologists have breathlessly briefed the LitFL team about their most brilliant breakthrough since they identified the threat ADHD treatment poses to the future of emergency medicine.

In the wake of the recent unceremonious disrobing of the Society for the Prevention of Surgery, UCEM neurologists have elucidated the biological determinants of the gaping chasm of character that separates ‘Knife-(wo)men’ from ‘Gas-(wo)men’.  Finally there is an explanation for the operating room’s metaphorical, yet very real, blood-brain barrier.

PR supervisor Egerton Y. Davis IV, spokesperson for UCEM, said:

“This work is truly miraculous — a veritable marvel of functional neuroanatomical wizardry. We haven’t seen an advance like this since the days of Sir Thomas Willis, yes, he of the Spider. Willis, as I’m sure you recall, was first to localise basic motor functions to the cerebellum and brainstem of pigeons — by removing their cerebrums and packing their skulls with straw. Our neurologists have done a similar thing, but with surgeons and anaesthetists of course, not pigeons.”

“Sure, there will be naysayers — Sir Thomas himself had to put up with the constant refrain of, “What you talking about, Willis?” (RIP Gary Coleman), whenever he tried to disseminate his discoveries. Nevertheless, this work is amazing — it rightly takes its place alongside UCEM’s other endeavours in the pantheon of world-changing utopian medical research.”

With that, Assistant Sub-Professor Davis, unveiled these two intricately detailed functional brain maps (each magnified 10,000-fold, of course):

Functional neuroanatomy of the surgical and anaesthestic brain.
Lawrence Caldicott BMJ 2009
Utopian College of Emergency for Medicine

Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at the Alfred ICU in Melbourne. He is also a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. He is a co-founder of the Australia and New Zealand Clinician Educator Network (ANZCEN) and is the Lead for the ANZCEN Clinician Educator Incubator programme. He is on the Board of Directors for the Intensive Care Foundation and is a First Part Examiner for the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives.

After finishing his medical degree at the University of Auckland, he continued post-graduate training in New Zealand as well as Australia’s Northern Territory, Perth and Melbourne. He has completed fellowship training in both intensive care medicine and emergency medicine, as well as post-graduate training in biochemistry, clinical toxicology, clinical epidemiology, and health professional education.

He is actively involved in in using translational simulation to improve patient care and the design of processes and systems at Alfred Health. He coordinates the Alfred ICU’s education and simulation programmes and runs the unit’s education website, INTENSIVE.  He created the ‘Critically Ill Airway’ course and teaches on numerous courses around the world. He is one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) and is co-creator of litfl.com, the RAGE podcast, the Resuscitology course, and the SMACC conference.

His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.

On Twitter, he is @precordialthump.

| INTENSIVE | RAGE | Resuscitology | SMACC

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