When a critical patient lands on your department's doorstep without prior notice, even the most seasoned professionals can find themselves momentarily at a loss — wondering what steps to take first and how to prioritize actions in those crucial initial seconds. What do I do first, what do I do next? What’s REALLY important in the first few seconds? In this episode, emergency intensivist and physician coach Scott Weingart breaks down how to get your mind unstuck and move into action.

Guest Bio: Scott Weingart, MD is a physician coach and emergency department intensivist from New York. He did fellowships in Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, and ECMO. He is best known for talking about Resuscitation and Critical Care on the EMCRIT podcast , which has been downloaded > 40 million times.

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We Discuss:

Temporizing vs. Stabilizing: Why Seconds Count but Don't Really Count
The Emergency Action Drill
Get Off the Spot: Taking Action to Get Out of the White Noise
Beat The Stress Fool: Breathe, Self Talk, See (Mental Rehearsal), Focus with a Trigger Word
Using Operant Conditioning to Train a De-escalating Trigger Word
You Don't Need to Be Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: The Critical Steps to Start Unfreezing
The transition from temporizing to definitive care in a trauma arrest
Why ACLS Fails as an Emergency Action Drill: Strategy vs Logistics
The Reason Why Cognitive Freeze Happens in a Zero Warning Critical Situation
How to Craft Your Own Emergency Action Drills: The Difference Between Thinky Time and Pure Action
Building an Emergency Action Drill from the Ground Up for a New Disease
A Hospital's Resuscitation Readiness Contributes to an Individual Clinician Freezing in a Zero Warning Situation
Making an Emergency Department Resuscitation Ready on an Individual Level
Emergency Department Resuscitation Readiness on a Systems Level: The Four Steps to Become a Resus World Champion
Potential Objections to Becoming Resuscitation Ready
How to Communicate Uncertainty in a Critical Situation

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The Driveway Debrief

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