Blood gases are really commonly used in ED, Critical Care, Respiratory Medicine and Prehospitally. In fact, you’d do well to walk 10 meters in an ED without being given one to sign off! But it’s for good reason, because they give you additional information about what’s going on from a respiratory and metabolic perspective in the patient.

And it’s probably worth mentioning at this point, this episode is going to be pretty ‘science-heavy’, there should be something in here for everyone; from the clinician that's been looking at these things for the last 30 years, to those that haven't started interpreting gases.

So arterial blood gases can tell you about the efficacy of the patients ventilation in terms of their partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels and also from a metabolic perspective about other disorders of their acid-base balance. 

In the episode we'll be covering the following;

-Overview of blood gases

-Respiratory & metabolic sides of the gas

-Acidaemia

-Alkalaemia

-Bicarbonate or base excess?

-Compensation

-Oxygenation

-Anion gaps

-System of interpretation

-Venous gases

-Clinical application & examples of interpretation

We'll be referring to the equation listed on our webpage, so make sure you go and have a look at that and all the references listed.

Once you've listened to the podcast make sure you run through the quiz below to consolidate the concepts covered with some more gas examples and of course get you free CPD certificate for your TheResusRoom portfolio!

Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.

Enjoy!

Simon, Rob & James