A personal account of practising the fundamentals during the first COVID-19 wave. Using CPAP setup, removing PPE, closed-loop communication and end-of-life conversations as examples, the author explores breaking skills into smaller steps, seeking feedback and learning deliberately during everyday work.
Emergency Department Management
A personal reflection on privilege, social bias and the limits of one's own perspective. Drawing on experiences in medicine and South Africa, the author examines uncomfortable conversations, unconscious bias and the need to listen to colleagues whose opportunities and experiences have been different.
Writing in April 2020, Simon Carley argues for evidence-based medicine despite the pressure to try unproven COVID-19 treatments. He examines the weaknesses of uncontrolled reports and explains how coordinated UK research, including RECOVERY, offered a route to more reliable answers.
A collection assembled in April 2020 for doctors redeployed into emergency medicine during COVID-19. It brings together RCEM and St Emlyn's induction resources, pandemic material and open-access books to support clinicians entering the ED for the first time or returning after a gap.
Natalie May reflects on emotions in emergency medicine, drawing on her experience of postnatal anxiety and depression. She explores why clinicians bottle up feelings and introduces a self-validation approach: acknowledging, allowing and understanding emotions without judging ourselves for having them.
A March 2020 account of preparing an emergency department for COVID-19. The Virchester team discusses leadership, PPE and simulation training, staffing, difficult conversations and service capacity, showing how local plans developed while the likely scale and course of the outbreak remained uncertain.
Practical perspectives on trauma care and team leadership.
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