CCC Update 007
Hopefully you are well aware of LITFL’s Critical Care Compendium. It started out as a resource for the FCICM exam — which it is — but has grown into a 1500+ page mega-paedia of critical care. If something isn’t there and you think it should be, let me know and I’ll make it happen.
If you are having trouble accessing some pages it is because LITFL has undergone a bit of spring cleaning. The “education/” part of the URL for CCC pages has been removed.
Airway Pressure Release Ventilation (APRV)
- Do you understand how this open lung-based approach to mechanical ventilation works? Find out here.
- Who is at risk? (pretty much anyone reading this…) What are the contributing factors? What are the consequences? What can we do about it? This is a grossly neglected topic in critical care education that we all need to know about.
- This concept is central to the design of randomised control trials. Find out what it is, the pros and cons, and the alternatives.
- A description, with pros and cons, of hybrid units designed for simultaneous resuscitation, interventional radiology and operative care of critically ill patients.
- This is so common in ICU and the causes are often multifactorial. However, there are key causes that must not be missed, with important implications for management.
Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT)
- Marcelo Amato blew us all away with his EIT work when he was in Melbourne for The 8th Alfred Advanced Mechanical Ventilation Conference (check out Dave Tuxen’s key learning points here). Read on to found out what EIT is, how it can give you realtime lung ventilation and perfusion information, and what it can be used for.
- Northern Australia, and Cairns in particular, is something of an epicenter for this zoonosis. Despite a global distribution, not everyone knows the essentials. Read this, and you will. It seemed to be the focus of a question in the last FCICM viva examination, know for the next written.
- With the world’s biggest outbreak ongoing, it was time to update the Ebola page. Interestingly, many cases do not have haemorrhagic features.
- Not just a hepatobiliary problem, this is a systemic illness that needs urgent drainage of the biliary tracts and aggressive treatment of sepsis. This also came up in the last FCICM exam vivas – exam candidates should know it for the next written.
Critical Care
Compendium
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.
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