Coda Change

Sue Mason gives you her take on Geriatric Emergency Medicine. Sue's bread and butter is managing the elderly in the Emergency Department. It is not a sexy topic and there are few gizmos and gadgets. Nevertheless, it is very important. How big is the problem? Patients over 65 years represent about a quarter of the patients that attend Sue's Emergency Department. However, most of these patients arri...

Dr Michelle Johnston talks about dystopian futures and the relevance of emergency medicine in forming such futures. Literature can provide insights into the two types of future we can expect: an optimistic, technologically advanced future as showcased in the movie "Blade Runner" or a dystopian future as envisioned by George Orwell in the novel "1984". She discusses how different authors have writt...

Mike Abernethy runs you through the pitfalls and challenges of rural trauma resuscitation and prevention. The farm is a dangerous workplace. Accidents have an unusually high morbidity and mortality not only for the worker, but also his/her family members. The reasons are multi-factorial but are the result of a complex interaction of environment, equipment and human factors. The vast majority of ag...

Dr Simon Carley discusses the future of emergency medicine. Simon begins by talking about how things have changed in emergency medicine since he started his career in the 1990s. He wants to shed some light on where we are going with emergency medicine, what is happening to us and what is shaping us. He believes that predictions about the future, as shown in movies like Back to the Future, might no...

A Tribute to Dr John Hinds, Dr Janet Acheson speaks about her life with Dr John Hinds and how unexpected his death was. John Hinds was known as the pioneer of pre-hospital trauma, a master educator and powerful orator. He was "son" to his mother Josephine, "John boy" to his father Dermot and "John" to his friends and family. John Hinds inherited his meticulousness from his mother and sense of adve...

Dr Ashley Shreves discuses palliative care and critical illness. She begins by talking about a case she feels she mishandled during the initial days of her career. How she was unprepared to handle an end-of-life case efficiently. She goes on to enumerate the multiple specific challenges, a knowledge of which would have helped her handle the case more competently. First - One must identify the dyin...

Rueben Strayer provides a masterclass in droperidol for emergency management of agitation. He discusses sedation in three patient groups. Agitated but cooperative If the patient is agitated but cooperative there is no concern for a dangerous condition. They respond well to some company and a sandwich. Drug therapy in this group is relatively straightforward. Disruptive without danger You can conve...

Dr Victoria Brazil discusses the Dunning-Kruger Effect, Imposter Syndrome and quality improvement. Vic starts the podcast reminiscing about her initial days as a resuscitationist. She talks about the two psychological phenomena noticed in people working in pre-hospital care. The Dunning-Kruger effect, where people tend to think they are better at a job than they are, and imposter syndrome, where p...

This is a fresh ICH discussion covering controversies in 2015: blood pressure control, reversal of anticoagulation, and prognosis.

Tom Bleck has been in the top echelons of neurocritical care for decades. As a highly active member of the CCM-L internet group, he was pioneering internet based crit care discussions before Twitter was ever conceived. Considered by many to be the leading world expert on status epilepticus, he brings insights from research and extensive experience you will hear from no one else. A rare treat.  

A panel of neurocritical care fanatics discuss the nuances of managing aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) from pre-hospital through ED to ICU. This is a fascinating insight into international practice variations and the justification for these. It's very unusual to have such a panel of experts all in the same room speaking so frankly. This was recorded live at the SMACCBRAIN workshop in Chi...

SMACC Chicago Beat the Bug Q&A session with Kath Maitland, Mark Crislip, Flavia Machado and Chris Nickson.

SMACC Chicago Q & A session on Funky Physiology with Mybourgh, Saxona, Hensley and Perner.

Heart, Brazil and Gatward discuss The Future of Continued Medical Education in this SMACC Chicago Q&A Panel Review. 

Warwick Teague and Andy Sloas argue similar cases in their #SMACCChicago Cage match 'All Paeds Trauma Should be Managed in a Paediatric Trauma Centre'. An interesting insight into Paeds trauma centres in Australia and America. Teague and Sloas offer valuable idea's on timely and affective treatment of paediatric trauma patients.

Howie shows us the tools in his toolkit: Tourniquets save lives and do not cause limb ischaemia. The aorta is clamped for many hours in cardiac surgery. Data from the battlefield showed that in >800 cases where tourniquets were applied, there were 3 adverse outcomes (loss of sensation in the distal fingertips). Haemorrhage control (Israeli) bandages are tourniquets with a haemostatic agent that ca...

Airway management induces stress and fear in the heart of many Critical Care practitioners. In a high pressure situation, it's easy to falter on the see-saw of demand vs. ability. Rich argues that in difficult airway management, we are hindered by: complex algorithms, anecdotal expertise and the negative perception of the task as 'undoable' and the downplaying of our abilities. In crisis, we need...

Andy Naidech gives a fascinating and powerful short talk on controversies in management of aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage, followed by discussion from the panel of experts and questions from the crowd. This was recorded at the neuro workshop for SMACC Chicago and was a very popular session.

In this hypothetical panel discussion, our protagonists have just started work at the Utopia Trauma Centre – a state of the art facility that is world renowned for its excellence in trauma care, research and teaching … Our panel includes a social worker in intensive care, a senior intensivist and director of training for ICU, an emergency physician and director of 'physician leadership development...

Simon Carley has us asking ourselves some confronting questions about our abilities in his SMACC Chicago talk 'Are You as Good as You Think?'. Carley has us delve into our confidence, competencies and whats makes for a good self learning environment. Initially Carley asks how good we think we are at driving? He then sites studies of Australian and European driver responses stating that 93% of Auss...

Cliff Reid unites our passion of Critical Care in his SMACC Chicago talk Advice to Young Resuscitationist - It's up to us to Save the World. Talking us through his advice to his former younger self, Reid sights mistakes, case examples, and essentially provides us with invaluable tips to nudge us along to Resus Mastery. Reid offers the following advice to his former, younger self; Your career and s...

Simon Finfer has spent his career managing patients with traumatic brain injury nad has watched treatment fads come and go. He's also taken part in some of the best and biggest clinical trials in this area which give him a unique perspective on why we do what we do in managing this devastating but common condition. In the contraints of 15 minutes, he'll make you think and hopefully question your o...

Imogen Mitchell's SMACC Chicago talk 'Morphing the Recalcitrant Clinician' talks us through the steps to engage the reluctant physician when implementing change. Imogen initally touches on the stages of physician engagement from aversion, to apathy, to engaged and then outlines the steps to morphing the reluctant physician. 1. Seek out a clinical champion 2. Establish a common purpose/vision 3. St...

David Juurlink SMACC Chicago talk 'Drug Interactions That Can Kill (and How to Avoid Them)' takes us on a journey of drug interactions, case studies, and avoidance strategies. Juurlink starts by educating us on the two different drug-drug interactions (DDI) - effects of one drug altered by the use of another . First of which is Pharmacokinetic where by one drug alters the level of another, the sec...

Rick Body's SMACC Chicago talk 'Is compassion a Patients Right?' takes us on a journey of emotions in critical care. Starting with his rendition of john Lennons 'Love'. Body, explains the origin of the word compassion - a move to act based on someone else suffering, a sharing of suffering with. Body, initially focuses on a study conducted within his hospital of 125 patients, who were interviewed w...