The Resus Room

Managing external haemorrhage is easy right?! Then why does haemorrhage remain a major cause of death from trauma worldwide? Ok, some of that is from internal sources, but…. No one should die from compressible external haemorrhage With the right treatment applied in a timely fashion, the vast majority of these bleeds can be stopped. But with new advances like haemostatic agents, changing advice su...

Welcome back to our monthly round up of the best papers in the resuscitation world. Again we've got 3 great papers covering some really important points of practice. First up we have a look at one of the most talked about diagnostic tests in Emergency Medicine, Troponin. We're are always looking to increase the sensitivity of the assay and test in order to ensure the patient hasn't got Acute Coron...

The management of a cardiac arrest can be stressful at the best of times, but add into that the patient being a child and you have the potential for an overwhelmingly stressful situation. Fortunately the major resuscitation bodies have some sound guidance on the management of paediatric arrests. In this episode we run through some of those guidelines and also the evidence base on the topic (scant...

Professor Simon Carley from St. Emlyns caught up with us at the superb Trauma Care Conference and talked through his top papers in trauma from the last 12 months. There's something for everyone from diagnosing arterial injuries, blood pressure targets in the head injury patient, to i.v. contrast all the way through to imaging in kids. If you haven't already, make sure you go and check out the St E...

Dare we say it, we think this month's papers podcast is the best yet, we've got 3 superb papers and topics to consider! The literature has been pretty airway heavy this month so we've got 3 papers on and around the topic for you. First up we have a look at a really interesting paper from London HEMS looking at the risks v benefit of prehospital rapid sequence intubation in patients who are awake b...

Evidence based medicine (EBM) allows us to deliver the best care to our patients and understanding the concepts involved is crucial. Over the last 18 month we've been building an online course to give people a sound understanding of EBM and we thought we'd give you a free taster of what it's all about. Have a listen to one of our episodes here on statistics and if you want to find out more have a...

For this episode we've been lucky enough to catch a number of the speakers from the traumacare conference. First up, conference organiser Caroline Leech (EM + PHEM consultant) gave us a few minutes of her time to talk about the latest major trauma key performance indicators from NICE. Nicola Curry (Consultant Haematologist) spoke about transfusion in trauma and the use of massive haemorrhage proto...

In this episode Rob takes us through a case he saw recently that brought about some invaluable learning. We're not going to give you anymore clues than that! Enjoy! Simon  &  Rob References & Further Reading (anonymised to keep the anticipation!) Article 1   Article 2   Article 3   Article 4  

  Welcome back to April's papers of the month. We've got 3 papers this month that look to challenge our work up strategies for the critically unwell. First up we look at a paper on the Ottawa subarachnoid haemorrhage rule, specifically considering if we can decrease scanning in patients with a suspected SAH and what application of the rule might mean for our practice. Next up we look at a paper th...

Gaining control of the airway in a critically unwell patient is a key skill of the critical care team and littered with potential for difficulty and complications. NAP4 highlighted the real dangers faced with their review of complications of airway management in the UK, lessons have been learnt and practice has progressed. As always there is room to improve on current practice and a recent paper p...

How often do you prescribe or give i.v. fluids to your patients? How much thought goes into what's contained in that fluid? What effect will you fluid choice have on your patient? Two trials on crystalloid administration in the acutely unwell patient have occupied a lot of conversation in the research world over the last few weeks, both published in the NEJM and in this podcast we take a look at t...

Welcome to March's papers of the month. We know we're biased but we've got 3 more superb papers for you this month! First up we review a paper looking at oxygen levels in patient's with a return of spontaneous circulation following cardiac arrest, is hyperoxia bad news for this patient cohort as well as the other areas we've recently covered? Secondly we have a look at a paper reviewing the associ...

So the three of us are back together and going to take on Sepsis! It's vital to have a sound understanding of sepsis. It has a huge morbidity and mortality but importantly there is so much that we can do both prehospital and in hospital to improve patient outcomes. In the podcast we cover the following; Definitions Scale of problem Different bodies; NICE/Sepsis Trust/3 rd international consensus d...

On a not infrequent basis we will come across patients in hospital who have a CT head scan that appears to show an unsurvivable event. Having sourced opinion from our neurosurgical and neurology colleagues we may well be given the advice to withdraw care for the patient. It has become increasingly recognised that prognosticating in such patients at an early stage is extremely difficult with numero...

Welcome back, we've got 3 absolute beauties of papers for you this month! You'll have struggled not to have heard about the ADRENAL trial, a trial of iv steroids in the sickest of patients with septic shock. We also have a look at a trial that many have been quoting as sound evidence for the utility of pH during the prognostication of patients in cardiac arrest. Finally we have a look at a paper t...

In this episode we cover a paper that you have to know about! The use of tranexamic acid(or TXA) has become widespread in the case of major trauma and post partum haemorrhage. This time we discuss a recent paper that asks us if giving it within 3 hours is enough, or whether we need to be even more specific regarding its urgency of administration in order to save lives from bleeding. There is a sup...

Prehospital Care is evolving rapidly and is one of the most exciting and dynamic specialties to be involved with at the moment. As a reflection of it's progress the Faculty of Pre Hospital Care held  its first scientific conference this week. We were lucky enough to be invited by Caroline Leech , EM & PHEM Consultant and the person responsible for organising this superb event, to interview some of...

Happy New Year!! Welcome back to the podcast and what we hope will be a superb year. We've got three excellent papers that are extremely relevant to our practice and will have an impact on practice. First up it's a paper looking at the benefit of iv versus oral paracetamol in the Emergency Department, something we do really frequently but what does the evidence say? Next we have a look at the diff...

Handover matters. Handover of patient care occurs at multiple points in the patient's journey and is a crucial point for transference of information and inter professional working. Whether it's the big trauma in Resus with the prehospital services presenting to the big crowd, right the way through to the patient coming to minors who looks like they will be going home shorty, each of these transact...

You've got a critically unwell patient who needs an RSI. You've got lots of things to think about but specifically do you ramp them up or keep them supine, additionally do you use a checklist or are those things a complete waste of time? This month we have a look at 2 papers which should shed some light on the subject. We also look at a systematic review and meta-analysis which hopefully helps us...

Traumatic Cardiac Arrest; for many of us an infrequent presentation and it that lies the problem. In our previous cardiac arrest podcast we talked about the approach to the arresting patient, however in trauma the approach change significantly. We require a different set of skills and priorities and having the whole team on board whilst sharing the same mental model is key. Have a listen to the po...

If you talk to people about the topic of thrombolysis in PE they'll tell you about the controversy of the submassive category, but there's a universal acceptance that thrombolysing massive PE's is well evidenced and straight forward. In this episode we delve back into the literature and not only explore massive PE thrombolysis, but also the gold standard to which it is judged upon, heparin. Have a...

Welcome back to November's papers podcast! This month we've got some great topics to discuss. We look at another paper on the topic of oxygen therapy, this time a hug article from JAMA on oxygen therapy in the context of acute stroke and the impact on disability. Next up we look at a fascinating case report of a extradural haematoma that was drained via an I.O. needle prior to surgical evacuation....

Last time in Roadside to Resus we discussed cardiac arrest with a view to obtaining a return in spontaneous circulation, ROSC. However gaining a ROSC is just one step along the long road to discharging a patient with a good neurological function back into the community. In fact ROSC is really where all of the hard work really starts! In this podcast we talk more about the evidence base and algorit...

This podcast covers some highlights from the talks at the BASICS and The Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care 2017 Conference. We were lucky enough to be invited by Caroline Leech to cover the day and managed to grab a couple of minutes with a handful of the superb speakers; Dr. Tom Evens; Elite sports for high performance clinicians Dr. Les Gordon; Pre-hospital management of hypothermia Dr. Helen Milne;...