TopMedTalk

"I hope to impress upon you that this is a topic that we can and must do better at ... no malnourished patient should ever have elective surgery without having a nutrition assessment done" This piece is presented in two parts; this is part 1. Using perioperative nutrition to optimize our patients outcomes; data shows us that nutrition therapy or nutrition optimization is literally life saving. Any...

"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...

"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...

"Perhaps assessing functional performance is something that we've overlooked in medicine" This piece is about the role of functional assessment and status in perioperative medicine. The Duke Activity Status Index (DASI) can be found here: https://www.mdcalc.com/duke-activity-status-index-dasi The Mini Cog assessment is here: http://mini-cog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Mini-Cog-Form-010816.pdf T...

This piece digs deep into the realities of coping with COVID 19 patients who have had their care escalated to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU); "we don't seem to be looking at our typical sepsis patients who get multiple organ failure in the classical way" and "you're surprised at how young some of the patients are...". Our guest provides us further insight; a 'household name' in the haemodynamic mon...

This piece gives us a look at some of the latest thinking on Post Operative Nausea and Vomiting (PONV). It includes a discussion about Amisulpride and discusses new, yet to be published, consensus guidelines for PONV. The original guidelines are here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24356162 Also, you may like to check out the details of this paper here: Amisulpride: A New Dopamine Antagonist...

"Some practical tips you can take away and implement in your hospital..." In the UK there is a legal imperative to minimalise and individualise risk now but it's widely understood to be helpful if you want to provide better value and patient outcomes. How can risks be identified and minimised? How can these risks then help to provide better quality shared decision making? How can plan a perioperat...

"I did a study back in 2002 where I was able to count a grand total of forty patients above the age of eighty in our (Intensive Care Unit) ICU and our (High Dependency Unit) HDU, nowadays I'd count close enough to a hundred and sixty" How do we refine our diagnostic tools? How can teaching in this area help to save lives? Should you consider a 'geriatric intensive care unit'? Is this an area where...

This piece gets deep into a much needed discussion regarding frailty, delirium, post-operative cognitive dysfunction and brain health. Noted as one of the highlights of the year in our recent holiday specials and previously only available to attendees to the incredibly successful EBPOM Chicago 2020; go to www.ebpom.org now for more details on forthcoming events and special offers now. This piece i...

This piece gets deep into a much needed discussion regarding frailty, delirium, post-operative cognitive dysfunction and brain health. Noted as one of the highlights of the year in our recent holiday specials and previously only available to attendees to the incredibly successful EBPOM Chicago 2020; go to www.ebpom.org now for more details on forthcoming events and special offers. This piece gets...

"It might just be 'boring old blood pressure ... (but) ... every fourth operation there is evidence of a modifiable risk factor". The Perioperative Quality Initiative (POQI) is our starting point for this conversation, seven concensus conferences focusing on various topics of interest to the perioperative practitioner. Check out their extensive open source resources here: www.poqi.org Hypotension...

"We're so invested in outcomes and data that it really gives us an objective view on how to approach things" This wide ranging conversation looks at how a data driven approach to change can produce better results in terms of patient outcomes. How do you highlight those opportunities with tact and clarity? How do we start to reward and recognise the best care that the evidence supports? We also hea...

Warning; this piece may make for uncomfortable listening. It is a fascinating look at the recent history of medicine and how our profession may in fact be sick. Contained within the story is a message of hope; evidence may contain the cure. In our recent history we seem to have enjoyed something of a "Golden Age" of medicine which, by raising quality of life so dramatically, has transformed our un...

"We wanted to know if goal directed therpy using a (Hypotension Prediction Index) HPI monitor can prevent hypotension". This piece looks in detail at the HPI monitor in practice- what is the benefit of this piece of technology in relation to hypotensive episodes? Furthermore how else is it to be tested and when will these tests be carried out? Presented by Desiree Chappell and Monty Mythen with th...

"We have to remember that patients have a team" How do we involve patients in the increasingly complex conversations we have in the perioperative space? This piece is a detailed case study which shows how shared decision making works in the perioperative setting. We know this improves patient experience yet in the last 10 or so years, consistently only 50 to 60% of patients say they were involved...

"In this session, we're going to talk about the importance of fitness, frailty, function and perioperative medicine." Fitness, frailty and function are overlapping concepts. In the UK, about quarter of patients will be over the age of 65 by 2034. As patients age they may develop comorbidities. These factors combine to present a unique opportunity for the perioperative physician; fitness increases...

"If I were to develop a simple uncomplicated urinary tract infection, I may well be able to continue to go to work as I was being treated for that illness but if an older frail patient develops a similar uncomplicated urinary tract infection, that can be a very significant illness, that patient may well be unable to walk or transfer as they could" Frailty in the perioperative period - what is it,...

TopMedTalk in Collaboration with MacMillan Cancer Support in the UK developed this podcast series to support patients during their cancer journey amidst the COVID 19 crisis. We know food gives us energy "but it also provides so much more". This podcast looks at the raw materials you'll need, when facing a cancer diagnosis, to get a better outcome; the vitamins, minerals and proteins, as well as th...

TopMedTalk in Collaboration with MacMillan Cancer Support in the UK developed this podcast series to support patients during their cancer journey amidst the COVID 19 crisis. It's vital you remain active after a cancer diagnosis, why is this? Hear the fascinating story behind the discovery that activity not only reduces your overall levels of fatigue but also improves your chances of recuperation....

TopMedTalk in Collaboration with MacMillan Cancer Support in the UK developed this podcast series to support patients during their cancer journey amidst the COVID 19 crisis. "It's very normal to sit with some difficult thoughts and feelings" after a cancer diagnosis. Broadly there are two types of mindsets; anxiety, which can be helpful, an element of wanting to 'do something' and, on the other ha...

"Accelerated surgery for hip fracture is safe and feasable, with troponin elevation before randomization, there was a mortality advantage with accelerated surgery. The logistics and resources required for accelerated surgery need to be balanced with the demonstrated benefits and patient's desires for accelerated surgery" This exciting piece from EBPOM 2020 provides a data download that further ill...

This is an Edwards Lifesciences Sponsored Lecture which was originally streamed live on TopMedTalk from the hugely successful EBPOM USA 2019 in Dallas. In this piece we hear about the ongoing need for institutions and healthcare professionals to recognise the damaging consequences of intraoperative hypotension. Evidence has been mounting here on TopMedTalk over the last couple of years; there's no...

"Babies are still being born" Still! Revisiting this conversation from early in the pandemic, we discuss obstetrics during COVID. This piece looks at the area of obstetrics in the midst of an unprecedented global crisis regarding the COVID 19 outbreak. How can the delicate balance between reducing infections and social distancing be interwoven with the needs of modern childbirth. Should we be conc...

What are the latest developments in quality improvement programs that help operative teams around the world take what they do to the next level? When does the surgical journey begin? How has a focus upon patients prior to surgery improved outcomes? What are "the five phases of care"? How has data collection and management helped us to continually improve a patient's surgical journey? This piece is...

This piece, originally streamed live on www.topmedtalk.com features a conversation about the implementation of enhanced recovery protocols and the results practitioners report. The discussion starts with the observation that just implementing the ERAS intraoperative protocols drove outstanding outcomes in practice. The wider discussion focuses on the importance of putting into practice a bigger pl...