Latest posts

What makes a clinical handover work when a critically ill patient arrives? Drawing on a 2018 Intensive Care Society presentation, this post explores preparation, team attention, structured communication and follow-up. It offers adaptable principles for sharing essential information while recognising that urgent treatment sometimes takes priority.

The opening day of the Intensive Care Society’s 2018 meeting covered sepsis, moral injury and the response to the Salisbury Novichok incident. This report also follows discussions of delirium, extubation and frailty, including how patients’ goals can shape decisions about critical care.

Can some traumatic pneumothoraces and haemothoraces be managed without a chest drain? This 2018 appraisal examines a UK observational study, including patients receiving positive-pressure ventilation. It considers selection bias, the limits of a single-centre dataset and the importance of monitoring when conservative management is chosen.

When does belonging to a specialty become a barrier to working together? Based on an EMTA 2018 presentation, this post explores tribalism, stereotypes and how we interpret colleagues’ actions. It suggests practical ways to build relationships across teams and return difficult conversations to a shared concern for patients.

Salim Rezaie’s St Emlyn’s Live 2018 presentation explores cognitive offloading during cardiac arrest care. The accompanying notes discuss CPR, vascular access, airway management, medication and PEA assessment, explicitly bringing together published evidence and ideas for consideration. This is a historical presentation rather than an updated resuscitation guideline.

How are online networks changing medical education and research? This reflection on an EMERGE10 presentation explores finding, curating and evaluating information, engaging learners and sharing research. It also considers attention, communication and the relationship between publication metrics and influence in the social age.