TopMedTalk

"You didn't have to think about it, the compliance continued, because it was so standardized. We had a well oiled machine that just kept on working through COVID". The Society for Enhanced Recovery After Cardiac Surgery (ERAS® Cardiac)'s conference has gotten off to a great start; this exclusive chat gets into some of the stand out moments so far; nutrition, data collection, the essentials of ERAS...

"You have to take the viewpoint that if the Nurses and the Physical Therapists and the Pharmacists are resisting the idea that you're putting forward, then there's probably something wrong with it, it doesn't work for them, for some reason, and you got to find out what that is..." This long form conversation is a highlight for TopMedTalk's coverage of The Society for Enhanced Recovery After Cardia...

"Our real 'next barrier' in the continuum of care is, it's okay to have pain, right? It's expected to have pain. [...] but it is better for you recovery wise, complication wise; to be able to get up, move around, know what's going on, not be confused, right? A little bit of that education goes a really long way." The opioid crisis, spine surgery, working as a team, pioneering efforts being done at...

This piece is a continued deep dive into the subject, of 'fitness, function, or frailty' and, perhaps, "fixing". It's essential listening for anyone interested in the latest thinking on this crucial topic and was a highlight of the London conference. How can we integrate frailty and cognitive scores in risk assessment tools to facilitate inclusion in shared decision making? How can we improve a su...

Fitness, function and, or, frailty are important determinants of the quality of the life that we live. In the context of major surgery it's very important we recognize and work with individual patients improving and optimizing them and their ability to handle an operation. This piece is an essential deep dive into the subject, essential listening for anyone interested in the latest thinking on thi...

With questions from the online audience, this piece looks at the "not too much and not too litte" sweet spot regarding fuel, fluid and oxygen; where is it and how do we get there, according to our distinguished panel? This podcast works well as a companion piece to the following talks which have already been released here on TopMedTalk: Helen McKenna, "Fuel, can you have too much?" https://www.top...

"I just feel there is some intrinsic value to, you know, a human presence" This piece tells the story of an anesthesiologist who, once vaccinated, decided to go the extra mile and work out a way to spend some quality time with his COVID-19 patients. Hear how he went through the appropriate procedures to arrange for them to be able to have as much human interaction as was safely possible. "With vac...

Part 2 of this conversation continues the momentum of Part 1 with a conversation about electronic medical records (EMR), how important data is to the process, the need for those who collect it to understand it and then, more broadly, the importance of putting the patient at the heart of what you do. Presented by Desiree Chappell with Vicki Morton , Director of Clinical and Quality Outcomes at Prov...

This piece is a two part conversation about the essence of what many of TopMedTalk's listeners do; Enhanced Recovery. A fascinating conversation between a number of experts in the field the conversation presented here was part of the hugely popular EBPOM Chicago 2020 meeting. For more on Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) go to www.ebpom.org This first part of the conversation covers wh...

How important is it to screen patients and measure their fitness prior to surgery? What is exercise training in the preoperative period? There is a very clear relationship between physical fitness and mortality. Importantly, when we think of prehabilitation, or exercise training, it's good to remember that you get the greatest benefit in the most unfit patients, in terms of mortality reductions. T...

"Accelerated surgery is not a panacea" This piece, presented in two parts, is a discussion about enabling enhanced recovery. Originally part of EBPOM London this is an 'as live' discussion with four of the main presenters from the conference. Get more detail on nutrition, hip fractures, psychological optimisation and discover both where the difficulties are and what opportunities they provide. For...

"Accelerated surgery is not a panacea" This piece, presented in two parts, is a discussion about enabling enhanced recovery. Originally part of EBPOM London this is an 'as live' discussion with four of the main presenters from the conference. Get more detail on nutrition, hip fractures, psychological optimisation and discover both where the difficulties are and what opportunities they provide. For...

This piece is an informative conversation about the models of prehabilitation from a number of different angles. Questions come in from an online audience as our panelists tackle the topic from their respective areas. What are the risks and how are they mitigated? Where does your funding come from and why? How safe is iron for cancer patients? The link to Safe Fit self referal is here: https://www...

"In the United States approximately 112,000 patients annually are at risk for adverse events associated with discharge from the operating room with residual neuromuscular blockade" This talk highlights the latest thinking on both monitoring and management of neuromuscular blockade. Where does the data lead us to? How big a problem do they suggest poor efficiency in this area is? What are the reali...

"As a cardiac surgeon, I feel like I'm hearing more and more about ERAS than ever before" "The CSCS Beat - more than just matters of the heart" is a fantastic new podcast from The Canadian Society of Cardiac Surgeons (CSCS); this piece sees TopMedTalk teaming up with them to tackle their first episode on the subject of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery and perioperative medicine. What is ERAS? How i...

This piece deals with the prediction of opioid induced respiratory depression for our inpatients on hospital wards, could a change in monitoring practices help? The postoperative period seems to be critical, the thirty day period immediately after anesthesia being a key area. 7.7% of postoperative deaths are in this period, according to The Lancet here; https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/ar...

"Maybe it's time to evolve our practice" Many believe ultrasound is an essential bedside tool which should be as common as the archetypal Doctor's stethoscope, with training made mandatory for all acute medicine specialists. This piece is structured as a debate where this point of view is advocated and debated. Presented by Mark Edwards , Consultant in Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at The...

This piece starts with the challenges faced by non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHD's) in this pandemic environment and the challenges of teaching novice anesthesiologists during COVID19. What insights can be gained from this high stress high demand environment where correct and comprehensive training is essential? The conversation is then thrown out to a panel and questions are considered; what...

"There is some great literature out there that has been shared ... great data, especially in cardiac surgery, which is where we are using it and I would like to expand it out to other service lines as well..." Methadone has had something of a resurgence recently, thanks in part to the work of some of our contributors in this piece. Could it be that this "opioid sparing opioid" could be a way to ac...

This piece, part 2 of 2, is a series of questions related to part 1; "Monitoring and management of neuromuscular blockade | EBPOM Chicago". This piece gets into the detail regarding one of the stand out moments of EBPOM Chicago 2020; questions from the online audience facilitate the discussion. Given the fact that our methods of monitoring residual neuromuscular blockade are often inadequate do yo...

This piece is an informative conversation about "the Perioperative Care Team"; who is essential to the team and how do we make sure everyone feels included? What elements do you need to make up such a team, how do you keep people energized and excited about it over the long term? How do we ensure, in this context, that a fee for service system interlocks with the needs of both the institution and...

"If you want to take population based data, and define hypotension, you'll be right for the majority of our average patients, but not for all patients and it appears that the amount of time we spend below the lower limit of autoregulation has meaning for patient outcomes" Starting from the origins of blood pressure monitoring, via the father of neurosurgery endocrinology, Harvey Cushing, through t...

"It was successful early on within the National Health Service.. [because] you could eliminate the cost of some unhelpful, unnecessary tests... referrals to other "-ologists"... in our system that works, because more work is just more work. It's not more money." Is the business case for prehabilitation a "slam dunk", as some enthusiasts claim? If so how do you measure value versus volume, is value...

What do we mean by "nutritionally fit" and why does it matter? How do we identify those most at risk in terms of screening and assessment and what's the difference between these two processes? How can we use screening and assessment to triage patients into care? Also, in the time of COVID19, are there ways we can perform some tasks related to these processes remotely? Presented by Steve Wooton , S...

"Studies suggest that even three fourths of patients may be anemic when they present for surgery and many of these patients are previously undiagnosed" This common problem is known to cause issues both within the perioperative period and beyond. How can we manage this condition and where does the latest data lead us? Following a presentation there is a panel discussion featuring questions from the...