The Resus Room

So COVID-19 has produced a multitude of challenges to healthcare providers, the response to these challenges has been phenomenal. One uncertainty is the strategy we should employ for hypoxic respiratory failure and several high quality guidelines have presented conflicting advice for the severely hypoxic patient. The Warwick Clinical Trials Unit has already begun recruiting patients to their RECOVERY-RS trial, which is open for hospitals in the UK to sign up for. This looks at 3 different strategies of respiratory support for patients admitted with suspected or known COVID-19 and hypoxia; namely CPAP, High-flow nasal oxygen and standard care. The trial is funded by the NIHR and supported by the Intensive Care Society. In this episode we get a chance to speak to Bronwen Connolly, one of the investigators of the RECOVERY-RS trial; we discuss the background evidence, the trial design, and when results will be available. As always we'd love to hear any thoughts or comments you have on the website and via twitter, and make sure you take a look at the protocol yourself. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James

First we hope you're all well. The world has changed dramatically over the the last few weeks and you are all doing a phenomenal job of providing healthcare under extremely challenging circumstances. We are determined to add a bit of normality to life with a non-COVID-19 papers of the month, full of bad jokes and some EBM. This month we're looking at intubation of acute alcohol intoxication in ED. We take a look at a paper that tries to quantify the risk of patients developing an intracerebral injury when taking antiplatelets and anticoagulants. Finally we have a look at the value of clinical examination and imaging findings in patients with elevated intracranial pressure, how valuable are individual findings? Most importantly take care of yourselves and loved ones and keep fighting the good fight! Simon & Rob

Excellent practice is led by following the high quality evidence based medicine, and there have been a lot of great papers published in the last 12 months! We were kindly invited to the Faculty of Pre Hospital Care Annual Scientific Conference to give a talk on the top 10 papers over the last year. Sadly, but completely understandably, the conference had to be cancelled due to COVID-19. In this podcast we cover the talk which is based on 2 cases that are common to PHEM;a major trauma and a cardiac arrest, and discuss how we can optimise outcomes for our patients in view of the recent evidence on these areas. As always we'd love to hear any thoughts or comments you have on the website and via twitter, and make sure you take a look at the references and guidelines linked below to draw your own conclusions. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James

We've got a great spread of topics for you this month, stretching all the way from Prehospital Critical Care, to core Emergency Medicine topics. Those of us seeing 'non-specific' complaints will appreciate how difficult they can be to diagnose and manage effectively. We have a look at a paper that helps characterise this group and give some context to their mortality risk. This may well help inform conversations and decision making with this patient group. Recent literature has looked at a more conservative management for traumatic pneumothoraces, but what about those that are spontaneous? The British Thoracic Society has guidelines for how we should deal with them but a recent RCT in the New England Journal of Medicine looks at an even more conservative approach for our patients; can we decrease the number of aspirations and drains that we are performing? Finally we've covered recently a paper on the topic of Prehospital Critical Care on the outcomes for patients in cardiac arrest, in this episode we have a look on their impact in trauma patients and hear from the lead author Ali Maddock on the implications of the study's findings. Enjoy! Simon & Rob

Figures for the year ending September 2019 showed a 7% rise in offences involving knives or sharp instruments recorded by the police (to 44,771 offences). This is 46% higher than when comparable recording began (year ending March 2011) and the highest on record. The news is sadly littered with cases of knife crime and terror and whilst we may have thought of stabbings as confined to small pockets of the country, sadly it now seems that we all have or all will be dealing with such cases. The variability in injury and severity is vast from stabbings, however in extremis they are completely time critical, and striking the balance between performing only those life saving interventions on scene, during transport and in ED and getting to the final destination of theatre as quickly as possible. In this podcast we discuss our thoughts on dealing with these cases; from the moment we get that call, all the way through to getting them into theatre. As always we'd love to hear any thoughts or comments you have on the website and via twitter, and make sure you take a look at the references and guidelines linked below to draw your own conclusions. Enjoy! Simon, Rob and James

Welcome back! Three very different topics and papers for you this month. First up we have a look at the risk/benefit of sending troponins on patients aged 65 years an older when presenting with non-specific complaints; does this help their work up, or is this a classic case of over-testing? Next up we take a look at the causes of our patients presenting to the ED with a reduced level of consciousness, this paper may help inform your differentials and knowledge on the likelihood of different pathologies. Finally, following on from our recent Roadside to Resus episode on Seizures, we take a look at an RCT which compares 3 second line anti epileptics; will this give us the definitive answer over which we should be using? Once again we would love to hear you comments and feedback, and make sure you check out the articles yourselves and come to your own conclusions. Enjoy Simon & Rob

Seizures are defined as a "paroxysmal electrical discharge of the neurones in the brain resulting in a change of function or behaviour". All of us involved in Emergency Care will encounter patients with seizures which can occur for a number of reasons, with Epilepsy affecting 1 in 100 people in the UK. Being able to identify the cause, terminate ongoing seizures and provide ongoing investigation and care is complicated and of paramount importance, as some of these episodes carry with them a high morbidity and mortality rate. In this episode of Roadside to Resus we run through the following; The scale of the problem Causes of seizures Definition of status epilepticus Different forms of seizures Clinical assessment Investigations Antiepileptic's Management& guidelines; both Pre and In-hospital RSI for status epilepticus Follow up and guidance As always we'd love to hear any thoughts or comments you have on the website and via twitter, and make sure you take a look at the references and guidelines linked below to draw your own conclusions. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James

Happy New Year!! We hope you've all had a great Christmas and New Year and that you managed to get some well earned time off over the festive period. 2019 saw us publish more insights from lead authors of the latest and most influential studies in Emergency Medicine and Critical Care, and we're really excited to say that we'll be delivering you even more in 2020 with some excellent RCTs, international guidelines and much, much more! This month we've got 3 papers to challenge practice across a wide array of practice. We start off with a paper that evaluates if we can change our d-dimer thresholds in suspected PE's and how many unnecessary work ups and scans that might decrease. Next, following on from our previous Hypothermia podcast, we have a look at a paper which looks at the best rewarming rates in patients with hypothermia, which may change your rewarming strategies.... Finally we have a think about our use of CT scanning in patients who gain a ROSC after cardiac arrest, and consider what benefit full body CT scanning might bring. Thanks to all of you for your support with the podcast over the last year and we look forward to bringing you some great stuff in 2020! Enjoy Simon & Rob

REBOA, ECMO, Thoracotomy? Where should we be focussing our attention in the world of Pre-hospital care? We were lucky enough to be invited to the London Trauma Conference on the Prehospital Day supported by the Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation. The day focussed on the areas we can make a real impact to the outcomes of our pre-hospital critical care patients. We grabbed a few minutes time of the following speakers to hear their thoughts; Introosseous Access; Jerry Nolan Pre-hospital Blood products; Jostein Hagemo Communication under pressure; Dr Stephen Hearn Pre-hospital Critical Care - what should the near future look like? Dr Stephen Rashford Have a listen and as always we'd love to hear any thoughts or comments you have on the website and via twitter, and take a look at the references below to draw your own conclusions. We'll be back in the new year with monthly episodes of Papers of the Month and Roadside to Resus; have a great Christmas and New Year and we'll speak to you soon! Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James

Well the year has flown by and it's already time for December's Papers of the Month Podcast! Head injuries are a huge work load for those of us involved in Emergency Care. Identifying those at risk of deterioration from a traumatic brain injury is a priority, as early intervention and prognostication can make a huge difference to patient outcomes. CT scanning is relatively easy to access and with it investigation creep has lowered our threshold of investigation and use of radiology resources; first up we have a look at a paper that looks at the potential benefits from employing a number of different guidelines in identifying the patients with traumatic brain injury, whilst comparing the risk of over investigation. Next up we have a look at the commonly made diagnosis of urinary tract infection in the older population and a review paper that will help you make the right diagnosis when it's present and not over diagnose when not. Finally we have a think about the potential benefit of a fluid bolus during induction of anaesthesia for our patients undergoing RSI; can a 500 mL fluid bolus prevent cardiovascular collapse? And we also hear the authors insights on the great RCT. Make sure to get in touch with any comments on any of the reviews, and importantly make sure you check out the papers and draw your own conclusions. Enjoy! Simon & Rob