TopMedTalk

At the ANZCA Annual Scientific Meeting in Auckland, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey discuss ANZCA's Emerging Leaders Conference (ELC), a retreat-style program held immediately before the ASM for clinicians within five years of achieving FANZCA, with allowances for career disruptions. Their guests, Dr Saana Taylor FANZCA and Dr Vik Singh FANZCA, co-conveners of this year's ELC, describe shaping this...

From the 58th annual meeting of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) in Montreal, Mike Grocott and new co-host Joe Larvin speak with SOAP president Ron George about SOAP's growth to over 1,000 attendees and its international, collaborative community. George outlines his career from Dalhousie to UCSF and back to Canada as director of obstetric anesthesia at Mount Sinai Hospi...

This classic TopMedTalk piece was originally cast in April 2020. The debate 'Direct laryngoscopes should be consigned to history', was hosted by The Royal College Of Anaesthetists and carried out by our two guests on this piece, where the debate is outlined in advance. We get into the advantages and challenges behind the two techniques; video laryngoscopy and direct laryngoscopy. The conversation...

Live from Euroanaesthesia 2026 in Rotterdam, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey speak with Laszlo Vutskits and Hugh Hemmings ahead of the "Hot Topics in General Anaesthesiology" lecture. Vutskits discusses reports of devastating neurologic outcomes after minor procedures in previously healthy patients, linked in a Spanish series to a shared mitochondrial DNA haplotype traced to Venezuela, including a r...

Recorded live at the ANZCA Annual Scientific Meeting in Auckland, Kate Leslie interviews Professor Alan Merry for a perioperative profile, covering his retirement from clinical practice, ongoing research supervision, and work on environmental sustainability. Merry recounts being raised by a single mother in Zimbabwe, studying medicine at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Harare, and moving...

At the EBPOM World Congress in London; TopMedTalk's Andy Cumpsty sits down for an exclusive interview with Amy Slogrove , editor-in-chief of the new journal, The Lancet Surgery and Anaesthesiology, ahead of its public launch on 20 July and a planned first issue in early 2027. Dr Slogrove, a South Africa–based pediatrician and epidemiologist, explains the journal's aim - to bring surgery and anaest...

Recorded live at the EBPOM World Congress in London, this episode of TopMedTalk AI features host James Bowness and co-host Amy Gomes speaking with Joe Harris , anaesthesia resident and Innovation Fellow in Anaesthesia at University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Foundation Trust and Sanjay Wijayatilake, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Neuro Intensive Care MedicineBarking, Havering and Redbridge...

At the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS) and Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists (SOCCA) meeting in Montreal, TopMedTalk hosts Mike Grocott and Desiree Chappell speak with Dr Faye Evans, Senior Associate in Perioperative Anesthesia at Boston Children's Hospital and Associate Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School and Director of Partnerships on the Board of Direct...

At the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and Faculty of Pain Medicine (FPM) held in Auckland, New Zealand, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey interview Neel Desai about non-opioid multi-modal analgesia, especially the use of paracetamol/NSAID combinations for minor surgery. Dr Neel Desai is a Consultant Anaesthetist at Guys and St Thomas's Hosp...

Joff Lacey and Imogen Fecher-Jones interview six oral abstract finalists at this years' EBPOM. Nora Cruz Rodriguez ; Association Between Participation in Remote Prehabilitation and High-Dependency Unit Length of Stay After Oesophagectomy and Radical Cystectomy: A Retrospective Cohort. Alexios Dosis ; Remote wearable monitoring as a preoperative risk assessment tool. Ned Douglas ; The Fluids, Atomo...

This month's TopMedTalk Classic is particularly topical: first broadcast back in 2018 but relevant once again after the recent news of an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Originally recorded at the Intensive Care Society State of the Art Meeting in London, Desiree Chappell and Monty Mythen speak with Dan Martin , OBE, now Professor at the University of Plymouth and Consultan...

This piece is essential listening for anyone interested in modern academic publishing. Recorded at the Collaborative Clinical Trials Meeting in Prato, Italy, TopMedTalk hosts Kate Leslie and Mike Grocott speak with Eric Rubin (Editor-in-Chief, New England Journal of Medicine) and Jocalyn Clark (International Editor, BMJ) about medical publishing. The conversation covers, engaging with clinical res...

Live from the World Congress of Anesthesiologists in Marrakesh, Kate Leslie speaks with Bruce Biccard , Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetic Science at the University of Oxford, Director of the African Perioperative Research Group, and board member of IARS and Safe Surgery South Africa. Bruce reflects on growing up in apartheid-era Cape Town, training in anaesthesia amid high-acuity care including tr...

At Euroanaesthesia in Rotterdam, TopMedTalk hosts Andy Cumpstey and Kate Leslie speak with Joana Berger-Estilita , ESAIC chair of education and training, about ESAIC's new leadership program. Developed over two years with a multidisciplinary team including ESAIC leadership and headquarters staff, the pilot addresses a gap for seasoned anaesthesiologists seeking further career progression. The retr...

At the World Congress of Anaesthesiologists (WCA) in Marrakech, Morocco, TopMedTalk co-editors In chief, Kate Leslie and Mike Grocott speak with Sydney anaesthesiologist Alwin Chuan , a member of the joint ESRA-ASRA working group on AI, about strengths and limitations of AI for regional anaesthesia and medicine. Chuan explains how generative AI is trained on vast datasets using transformer archite...

At Euroanaesthesia in Rotterdam, TopMedTalk hosts Andy Cumpsty and Kate Leslie speak with Denise Veelo Professor of Anesthesiology at the Amsterdam University Medical Center and Bernd Saugel Professor of Anesthesiology and Vice Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology in the Center of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, about two JAMA blo...

At this year's Euroanaesthesia meeting in Rotterdam, TopMedTalk host Andy Cumpsty interviews Wolfgang Buhre , Professor of Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at Utrecht University Medical Center and past president of the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC). The discussion starts with a focus upon the annual ESAIC congress and its international reach, with next year's...

Andy Cumpstey and Mike Grocott interview Kate Leslie about the SNaPP study (Sugammadex, Neostigmine, and Postoperative Pulmonary Complications). SNaPP is a pragmatic randomized study run from the University of Melbourne with the ANZCA Clinical Trials Network across 45 sites in Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. Patients aged 40+ having major abdominal or thoracic surgery (≥2 hours, overnight s...

At the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and Faculty of Pain Medicine (FPM) held in Auckland, New Zealand, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey interview the annual scientific meeting convenor Kerry Benson-Cooper and conference cultural advisor Tui Blair about planning the meeting and how Māori traditions and culture have informed not only the co...

At the SOAP meeting in Montreal, Desiree Chappell and Monty Mythen interview Dr. Marie Louise Meng , Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at Duke University Department of Anesthesiology and her former cardio-obstetric fellow Liliane Ernst , assistant professor in the Obstetric and Gynecologic Anesthesia section Wake Forest University. The conversation focuses on cardio-obstetric anesthesia, hemod...

TopMedTalk introduces our new "TopMedTalk Classics" series with a classic TopMedTalk episode from 2018 that is still prescient today. This lecture, given by Sir Bruce Keogh marked the NHS's 70th birthday, a time framed by political volatility, financial constraint, rising demand, and shifting public expectations. Keogh argues healthcare systems must adapt, highlighting the UK's strengths in medica...

The Association of Anaesthetists meeting in London was the perfect spot for us to launch our new series on Artificial Intelligence. Here, Andy Cumpstey and James Bowness discuss the new monthly series and the UK-Ireland "demand signaling" project on AI in anaesthesia, perioperative medicine and acute pain, supported by The Association. They are joined by their guest Nicky De Beer , The Association...

Settle yourself in for another fascinating glimpse behind the curtain as TopMedTalk's perioperative profiles focus upon the incredible journey of Vanessa Beavis. Recorded at ANZCA's recent annual scientific meeting in Auckland, TopMedTalk host Andy Cumpsty interviews anesthetist and former ANZCA President Vanessa Beavis about her path from growing up in South Africa to moving to Auckland in 1993....

From the World Congress of Anesthesiologists in Marrakech, TopMedTalk hosts Mike Grocott and Kate Leslie discuss perioperative cardiac risk assessment with Hilary Grocott , Professor and Head of, The Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics (University of British Columbia) and Michelle Chew Professor of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm...

At the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) meeting in Montreal, TopMedTalk hosts Desiree Chappell and Mike Grocott interview SOAP board member Dr. Dan Katz , an obstetric anesthesiologist at Mount Sinai, outgoing annual meeting chair and incoming vice president. Katz reports record attendance—over 900 preregistrations and nearly 1,100 total—plus standing-room sessions and revi...