Coda Change

Lisa McQueen - Pearl or Fecalith? Summary by: Lisa McQueen I’ve long been a fan of David Newman’s “Pseudoaxioms,” those medical proclamations handed down from generation to generation despite growing evidence that they are false. In this talk, I turn a critical eye toward common pseudoaxioms in pediatrics. Does aspirin really cause Reye syndrome? Should you routinely use atropine in preparation for neonatal intubation? Join me in an exploration of these and other pseudoaxioms. I may even debunk the notion that “children are not just little adults.”

ECMO or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation has shown promise in the use of cardiac arrest patients. Zack Shinar and his crew from San Diego have lead the way in emergency physician initiated ECMO for patients in cardiac arrest. In this lecture he explains briefly how ECMO works, what their outcomes have been and where ECMO is moving. Initially 5 of their first 8 patients were neurologically intact survivors. Their first patient had over an hour of downtime when cardiac bypass was initiated. He walked out of the hospital completely neurologically intact nine days later and now has been featured on the film “Code Black”. Physicians from their hospital, Sharp Memorial, were also recently featured on the television show “Untold Stories in the ER” for a save of a 21 year old female arresting from hyperkalemia. Dr. Shinar also discusses some of the latest physiologic questions as the Australians have pushed for smaller diameter catheters that allow for smaller flow volumes. He also discusses how in Paris pre-hospital ECMO is being done by physicians in various places like the subway, apartment buildings and even the Louvre. In the end, Dr. Shinar discusses the biggest question in any novel resuscitation technique: cost. Prolongation of life and particularly after a cardiac arrest is expensive and many people do not survive. Dr. Shinar uses various pioneers in the world of technology to tell how true genius is not in technologic advancements but in making those advancements available to the masses. He ends with a story about Linus Torvalds. Dr. Shinar shows how this man through the use of the collective minds of computer programmers worldwide created one of the best operating systems ever created: Linux. He asks the medical community to endorse this idea and introduces the concept of “free open access medical innovation”.

Goodbye GCS! Summary by: Mark Wilson Consciousness comprises “wakefulness” (that’s the brain stem, opening your eyes component) and “content” (that’s the supratentorial, thinking, “someone’s home” component). You can have wakefulness without content (e.g. persistent vegetative state) but not content without wakefulness. Describing a “level” of consciousness, converting this multifaceted human brain ability into a linear scale was possibly the biggest neuroscience break through of the 20th Century. The 1974 Lancet paper in which Brian Jennet and Sir Graham Teasdale proposed the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is certainly the most cited neuroscience paper. We had even put a man on the moon before this had been created. It’s relative simplicity and repeatability meant GCS was rapidly taken up across the world. Now 40 years on, is it out of date? There are problems with the GCS – it doesn’t include pupil response, it doesn’t look at ventilation or other autonomic functions hence other systems such as the 4 score system have been proposed. But these take longer, and are poorly known so cannot be used like GCS to rapidly convey in a meaningful way the level of consciousness of a patient between clinicians. In this talk Mark Wilson goes through the history of the GCS and other conscious measures… is it time to say Goodbye to GCS?

One of the many things that we, as intensivists or emergency physicians, do better than anyone in the business is obtain the emergent airway. We are usually introduced to our patients on the worst days of their lives and even though we may sometimes wish for it, we do not have the option to reschedule our intubations. Smashed, bloody, distorted, edematous airways secondary to trauma, anaphylaxis, and GI bleeds are the commonality not the exception. We manage those airways routinely with nary a complaint or even a hither for a better look at the glottis than what we can obtain. We often feel lucky to even get a glimpse of the arytenoids much less something that actually resembles normal laryngeal anatomy. Personally, if I knew that I would need to be intubated today, that my airway would be a bloody, edematous, traumatic mess and there was only chance for one person to take a shot at placing the tube, then I would pray to God that the last face I saw before the Roc and Ketamine pushed me asunder was the familiar grill of one of my EM/critical care colleagues. Who better to bet all my chips on then someone who deals with the most difficult airways on the face of the planet as part of their daily routine? The EM doc or critical care provider can not only get that airway, but is so relaxed about it that they will often casually check on the patient in the next bed before and after the intubation. That’s the confidence I’m looking for when it comes to the fast-paced life and death world of emergency airway. Now put a child’s life on the line. Are you ready to intubate what was a perfectly healthy three year old two hours before trauma threatened their life and placed their airway in your hands? You will be... Andrew Sloas DO, RDMS, FACEP, FAAEM, FAAP Editor-in-Chief: The PEM ED Podcast www.pemed.org

This talk will cover what we should do for patients who are considered too sick to have emergency surgery. These patients provide major management challenges in Critical Care. Do we admit them to intensive care to optimise them prior to emergency surgery or should we get on with surgery and resuscitate them intraoperatively? Should the surgery, if undertaken, be limited to damgae control surgery or operative resuscitation, or should more definitive surgical procedures be undertaken. There often isn't good evidence to mandate a course of action either way so the decision will mostly be based on the treating clinicians opinions. In these complex cases, who should decide? These factors and others will be examined

Error is almost inevitable in our clinical practice so we should be prepared to help and prepare those individuals involved for the benefit of them, our systems and our patients. Do you remember that patient you saw last night?': A phrase the strikes terror into the hearts of all physicians. The prospect of a patient coming to harm as a result of a mistake is terrifying but it can and does happen. The consequences for the patient and their family are often tragic but what of the clinicians who made the error? For many the result of making a terrible error is life changing. Those permanently harmed by error are often referred to as second victims with the consequences of terrible events being life-long. This talk explores the predictable course for clinicians who are involved in error and asks whether we can prepare and support such individuals through a difficult time.

In 2013, ~500,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa died as a direct result of Plasmodium falciparum malaria, accounting for 90% of global malaria mortality. The scale-up of control efforts has led to some reductions in malaria incidence in parts of Africa, but countries where transmission is high malaria continues to be a major public health problem. Early optimism that the most promising malaria vaccine candidate (RTS,S) would reduce the burden of malaria proved premature since following (3-dose) vaccination since immunity rapidly wanes >20 months post-vaccination. Severe malaria remains a major cause of hospital admission and paediatric death across sSA. Nevertheless, clinical research has been fragmented, resulting in only two large Phase III clinical trials - both with landmark results. The AQUAMAT trial, enrolling 5425 children demonstrated significantly lower in-hospital mortality in those receiving artesunate (8.5%) versus quinine (10.9%) (relative risk reduction 22.5%). Second, FEAST a pragmatic trial of fluid resuscitation as a supportive treatment in 3141 African children with shock, of whom 57% had severe malaria; this trial was stopped early due to higher 48-hour mortality in bolus arms (RR increase 45%) than no bolus (control) across all sub-groups. Even with artesunate as standard antimalarial treatment, overall mortality remains ~10%, but includes large sub-groups with substantially higher case fatalities (15-20%) with 3 key prognostic markers (coma, metabolic acidosis or a high blood urea nitrogen) and/or bacterial co-infection (CF ~24%). There seems little prospect for further reducing the substantial mortality of severe malaria within the foreseeable future without a concerted and strategic effort from funders and researchers. SMAART (a nascent consortium for research and trials) aims to catalyse and accelerate the severe malaria research agenda. SMAART will formulate and coordinate seamless Phase I/II to large multi-centre Phase III trials using efficient trial designs to inform treatment guidelines and ultimately the outcome amongst African children

Resuscitation- what's the point. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is unique as the only medical intervention performed on anyone without explicit contrary documentation. Therefore, CPR need to be understood in terms of societal expectations, legal mandates and professional duties. We also need to understand not just the the likelihood of survival, but also the likelihood of disability and the cost (both literally and figuratively) to patients, healthcare workers, and to an already stretched healthcare system. Even the term 'resuscitation' means different things to different people...and that's before we even wade into such terms as 'autonomy', 'paternalism' and 'patient-focused care'. In short, doctors, nurses patients and families can no longer shy away from discussing CPR: it's time to talk. It can be a remarkable way to prevent premature death, it can also squander finite resources and be the beginning of a terrible ordeal for frail patients and frazzled families.

The management of the septic patient in ICU is a recurrent topic for debate amongst intensivists. The decision of if and/or when to give blood transfusions is one of the key sources of contention. Dr Anders Perner is one of the most qualified people to weigh in on this debate. In this talk from SMACC Chicago, he delivers his stance on when to pull the transfusion trigger.Dr Anders Perner is an Intensive Care Specialist at Rigshospitalet and a professor in intensive care at Copenhagen University. He is the chairman of the Scandinavian Critical Care Trials Group and the strategic research program “New resuscitation strategies in patients with severe sepsis’. The contents of this talk are based on the findings of the TRISS trial - Transfusion Requirements in Septic Shock. This trial, Lower versus Higher Hemoglobin Threshold for Transfusion in Septic Shock was published in the NEJM in October 2014. The aim was to evaluate the recommendations from the Surviving Sepsis Campaign regarding transfusion in septic shock. The recommendation is that after the first 6 hours, transfusion threshold should be a Hb The TRISS trial was conducted as a multicentre, parallel-group trial run across 32 ICUs in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Patients with septic shock who had a Hb What’s your transfusion trigger? Is it time to rethink it?

Simulation is one of the most important advances in healthcare education and skills training of our generation. We now have simulation mannequins that can blink, breath, or even give birth thus allowing us to practice scenarios and skills before we encounter them in real patients. However, these sim dummies are not real people and so it is all too easy to dehumanize the scenario. According to Dr Phil Hyde, Director of Children’s Major Trauma and Southampton Children’s Hospital, it is this lack of emotional attachment that makes pure sim inadequate for training health care professionals in the management of trauma – especially trauma in children. In his talk from SMACC Chicago, Dr Phil Hyde illustrates why he and his colleagues have developed an educational program that takes sim to the next level. The key difference in this sim program is the incorporation of volunteer children to play the roles of injured paediatric patients. Another key aspect of this program are the incorporation of multidisciplinary teams including undergraduate students for all scenarios.The benefits of such a program have been far reaching. For the health professionals involved, it humanizes the scenario and induces an emotional attachment to the training exercise which adds an essential component to the training. Furthermore, it teaches professionals from different fields (nursing, medicine, allied health etc) to work together in these scenarios as would normally occur in real life. For the children involved, it is a safe controlled environment where they can learn about the health professionals and the health system, they learn about primary prevention and they can provide feedback to staff from a different vantage point. The community benefits through the improved primary prevention which is the most important aspect of treating trauma, a “man made disease”. This is a simple, yet powerful program that has so many benefits beyond the training of doctors and nurses to manage children involved in trauma. This is an intriguing, innovative talk that everyone can take something away from. Southampton Children’s Hospital is part of the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation trust. It is one of the largest teaching trusts in the UK. All of the simulation programs developed by Dr Phil Hyde and his colleagues at Southampton are open access and available for all health professionals to incorporate into their practice.