Emergency Medicine

Iain Beardsell reflects on the kindness and sense of community he encountered at SMACC Gold in 2014. He considers how friendships formed through social media can deepen face to face, and what a compassionate conference culture might bring back to everyday emergency care.

A short reading guide to two reviews of resuscitation research from 2013. The linked papers cover topics ranging from cardiac arrest prevention, basic life support and education to advanced life support, post-resuscitation care, prognostication and cardiac arrest centres.

A 2014 journal club examines falling severe-sepsis mortality across Australian and New Zealand intensive care units between 2000 and 2012. It asks what improving outcomes might tell us about the whole package of care, while distinguishing historical comparisons from evidence for any single treatment.

What can elite cycling and Formula One teach an emergency department about improvement? This reflection explores marginal gains: finding small weaknesses in everyday processes and addressing them consistently, rather than relying entirely on the next dramatic advance in resuscitation.

An initial response to the 2014 ProCESS trial of protocolised sepsis care. The post asks how changing background care, differences between patient populations and widespread adoption of resuscitation principles might affect the interpretation of a trial that challenged early goal-directed therapy.

A musical contribution to SMACC’s FOAMaoke tradition, celebrating free, open-access medical education and sharing knowledge across professional boundaries. This 2014 post introduces a playful adaptation of Imagine and provides the words for conference colleagues to join in.