The Resus Room

Welcome back to the podcast! We've got three papers this month covering the breadth of Emergency Care presentations and locations; from prehospital arrests, ketamine for analgesia in trauma and those complex elderly patients presenting with abdominal pain. First up we look at the use of prehospital thrombolysis for out of hospital cardiac arrest, something some critical care services are using for suspected PEs and MIs. But what are the outcomes for these patients and how accurate are the clinical suspicions that lead to the thrombolysis? Next up we look at an excellent prehospital RCT, PACKMaN, on the use of ketamine vs morphine for patients with pain following trauma. Is ketamine safe? Is it superior? And what is the side effect profile of each of these approaches? We're also lucky enough to have the lead author, Mike Smyth, come on to give his thoughts on the paper and what it might mean for clinical practice Finally we have a think about abdominal pain in the elderly population. Without a cause for the pain being found this can feel like a very high risk group of patients to discharge. Our final paper helps quantify that risk further, inform our decision making and identify factors that are associate with an increased morbidity and mortality. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

Opioid toxicity is a major and growing challenge across the UK and beyond, with nearly 10 deaths every day from opioid overdose and over a million adults using Class A drugs annually, the impact on emergency services is enormous. In this episode, we're diving deep into the recognition and management of acute opioid toxicity in the emergency setting, including the reversal using naloxone. We'll run through; The scale of the problem, including the rise of novel synthetic opioids like fentanyl and nitazenes. A breakdown of opioid pharmacology, including receptor types, potencies, and onset of action. How to identify classic and mixed presentations of opioid overdose. Best practice on naloxone dosing, routes of administration, and when to start infusions. The risk of acute withdrawal and how to manage it with care. How to approach mixed overdoses, cardiac arrests involving opioids, and nebulised naloxone. And finally, the importance of holistic care, safeguarding, and onward referral to support recovery. Whether you're in ED, prehospital care, or just want to sharpen your tox knowledge, this episode's packed with take-home learning. Oh, and yes... Gangs of London gets a shout-out too. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to April's Papers of the Month! First up this month we have a think about posterior circulatory strokes, which can mimic benign vertigo, and can be really tricky to differentiate between a completely benign issue or a stroke that is really important to pick up. Clearly imaging everyone is one option but completely impractical when you consider the gold standard of MRI. So having a bedside tests to rule in or out the diagnosis of stroke would be a huge help. Our first paper looks at the use of three bedside scoring systems; HINTS, TriAGe+ and ABCD2 scores in ED for patients presenting with possible posterior circulatory strokes. How accurate are they and can we reliably incorporate into our practice? Next up is traumatic cardiac arrest. This has obviously got a very high mortality rate. One of the interventions that might improve mortality (for some mechanisms and patients) is a resuscitative thoracotomy, however this is a really significant intervention and we want to ensure we are targeting it at the patients that may benefit. A great paper has just been published from London Air Ambulance which might just help us to identify those patients who would benefit with more certainty, along with those where futility has already been reached. Finally we take a look at acute kidney injury (AKI) and its association contrasted scans. Contrast induced nephropathy (CIN) has historically been a concern, particularly for patients with chronic kidney disease, with contrast causing direct injury and limited blood flow. But recent studies have questioned the actual risk of CIN & there's been a more recent RCEM statement on the topic, but we thought this might be a nice opportunity to refresh and look at a recent paper on the topic. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

Welcome back to The Resus Room! This time, we're diving into the fascinating and often overlooked world of electrical injuries. From household mishaps and workplace accidents to tasers and even lightning strikes, electrical injuries can range from minor shocks to life-threatening cardiac arrests. As always, we'll be taking you through the full spectrum of care, from first contact at the roadside to critical management in resus. And let's be honest, there's a real lack of clear guidance out there when it comes to managing these cases. So, we've done the legwork, scoured the literature, and we're here to make sense of it all. In this episode, we'll cover: Pathophysiology; how electricity interacts with the body and why not all shocks are created equal. Classification; what makes a low-voltage injury different from a high-voltage one, and why that matters. Prehospital & ED Management; who needs an ECG, who needs admission, and what to do with those tricky "seemingly fine" patients. Special cases; tasers, lightning strikes, and the unique challenges they pose. One of the big questions we'll be tackling: Does everyone who gets an electric shock need to go to hospital? We've all seen them, the patient that has a shock at work, but they feel fine. So, do they need a work-up, or can they safely go home? So, grab a coffee (or maybe a non-conductive beverage of choice), and let's get stuck in to Electrical Injuries! Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to March 2025's papers podcast! We start off this month with a fascinating paper looking at the experiences of relatives who were witness to unsuccessful resuscitation. We often talk on the podcast about the impact of medical or technical interventions, but this paper offer us an opportunity to consider the huge impact of our non-technical elements of practice and reflect on how we can best support relatives whilst still performing resuscitation to the best of our abilities. Next up we look at a paper deriving and validating a new adult trauma triage score The sBATT that predicts early mortality and need for intervention. Lastly we have a think about the use of adrenaline in out of hospital traumatic cardiac arrests; what association does it have on outcomes? Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

Cardiac Arrest in pregnancy affects around 1: 12-30,000 women in the developed world. As you'd expect the risk of death for mother and child is extremely high, but some causes of arrest are reversible and we can make a real impact with our care and treatment of these cases Now it goes without saying that these are some of the most emotive, complex and technically challenging Resuscitations that you could think to be involved in; by definition young female arrest with unborn babies involved. Thankfully this is not going to be a case that many of us see, but with the stakes so high and potential to impact on the outcome of two patients, it's an area that's worth real consideration, preparation and mental rehearsal in case we are one of the few that may need to deal with it! In this episode we're going to run through all the same stuff that you'd expect; pathophysiology of pregnancy, aetiology and the way in which we should approach these arrests. But then we're lucky enough to be joined by Caroline Leech, an EM and Prehospital doctor who's an expert in the area having just published a key paper that's prompted loads of discussion in crew room and online on the topic of maternal arrest and Resuscitative Hysterotomy which will really challenges our perception on survival for both mum and the unborn baby if a RH is indicated. So we'll be running through that paper with some really valuable insights from Caroline and wrap up with some questions to her exploring experience from cases, along with potential strategies for how approach and manage these cases for those working both in prehospital and in-hospital settings. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to February 2025's papers podcast! This month we're exploring papers on seizure management, oxygen strategies in trauma, along with transfusion strategies in patients with traumatic brain injuries. First up we look at at a paper exploring the potential benefit of adding ketamine into the strategy for treating patients with status epilepticus. Does it help to more reliably terminate seizures and what can we take from the paper? Trauma courses frequently mention the use of high flow oxygen in the management of trauma patients. But recent evidence in non-trauma patients has questioned whether we should be more targeted with oxygen therapy to optimise outcomes in other conditions. We take a look at an RCT looking to answer the question of which out of liberal or targeted oxygen therapy in trauma is the best approach. Finally we look at another RCT, this time focussing on traumatic brain injury and the transfusion strategy we should take to those who are anaemic. This is a really interesting paper, with great methodology and a lot to talk about from the conclusion!

Welcome back to the first Roadside to Resus episode for 2025!! In this episode, we're diving into a seasonally appropriate, and really paediatric common presentation for anyone involved in emergency care….Bronchiolitis.  Now although it's one of the most common respiratory illnesses affecting kids, bronchiolitis can easily cause confusion and concern around the severity of illness, whether to convey/admit/discharge, and also which treatments are indicated and which aren't, including the perennially hot topic of bronchodilators. In this episode we're going to and delve into all of those aspects & explore the evidence and guidelines that are out there for bronchiolitis, including the NICE guidelines on the topic. So, whether you're on the frontlines of paediatric emergency medicine or just brushing up on your knowledge, this episode…hopefully…will be packed with practical insights to enhance your care in those patients with bronchiolitis or even the differentials! Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Happy New Year!!! We hope you've had some time off over the festive period and now we're back to kick start the new year with three more great papers. Syncope is common presentation to the Emergency Department, accounting for 1% of presentations. Without a clear precipitant of the event it can be challenging to identify those patients who have a higher risk of associated morbidity and mortality, and furthermore those who would benefit from further investigation and observations. Our first paper looks at syncope risk-stratification tools and sheds some light on their utility. Acute exacerbations of COPD with acute type 2 respiratory failure and frequently treated with non-invasive ventilation (NIV), with high flow nasal oxygenation a treatment normally for patients in type 1 respiratory failure. However our second paper is a fantastic RCT looking at the the application of either NIV or high flow nasal oxygenation in those type 2 COPD exacerbations, are both options for our patients? Finally, since the advent of trauma networks in the UK, prehospital patients have been triaged to the most relevant centre based upon trauma triage tools. Our third paper looks at the performance of these tools and gives valuable insights for both those clinicians using the tools and those receiving trauma patients in both MTCs and other trauma units. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

This is an episode we've been wanting to cover for a long time now! In it we explore the challenges in entering and developing in prehospital critical care, which translate into pretty much developing in any new role both in and out of health care. We cover some pretty personally challenging experiences and the strategies that both clinicians new to prehospital critical care may find useful to employ. We also discuss how supervisors can use these techniques to both guide and support new clinicians.  The four main areas discussed are; Decision making Prioritisation of tasks Leadership Incorporating evidence based medicine into practice We wrap up exploring how reflection can be used to accelerate growth as a clinician but also the risks of over-reflection! We really hope you enjoy the episode and would love to hear any thoughts or feedback on the episode both on the website and via social media. Simon & James

A really strong line up of papers to bring this year's evidence round up to a close! First up we take a look at a paper evaluating the utility of pulse oximetry (along with several other diagnostic tests) in identifying vascular injury following trauma, a really interesting look at an approach we didn't know much about. Next up we run through PARAMEDIC-3, a huge RCT looking at the best vascular access strategy for patients in cardiac arrest, will the result of this paper change our approach? And finally we look at a paper focussing on intubation success rate in US EMS services according to intubation rate. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

Motor vehicle collisions or road traffic collisions are a massive problem worldwide. Data from the World Health Organisation reports that there are around 1.2 million deaths every year and this is the leading cause of death internationally for children and young adults aged 5-29 years.  In the UK there are around 1,500 deaths annually and also around 60,000 patients with significant and life changing injuries, which is 7 patients every hour!! So anything we can do to improve patient care following an MVC is definitely a worthwhile venture. We've looked at Extrication here on the podcast before but we're back on it again because today the Faculty of Pre Hospital Care have released their Consensus Statement on Extrication Following a Motor Vehicle Collision.  The statement builds on the work from the EXIT project and the research that has helped inform our understanding of multiple factors of extrication. The statement will inform a change of practice for both clinicians and non-medical responders and in this episode we run through the statement with two of it's authors and discuss the practical applications. Make sure you take a look at the new Consensus Statement itself and the background evidence which is all linked to on the website. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to the podcast and to November's Papers of the Month! We start off looking at the rate of pneumothoraces in patients following ROSC after a medical cardiac arrest. What is the incidence? Are there any risk factors? And how might this affect our index of suspicion and imaging practice? We've spoken before about how difficult vertigo can be as a presentation to the Emergency Department; really common, often benign but with differentials that include posterior circulatory strokes, tumours and infections. Our second paper looks at a clinical risk score for patients presenting with vertigo to the ED and consider how this might affect practice. And finally we take a look at a great paper focussing on pre-alerts to the ED; consider current barriers, understanding and ways that we could improve the process both for the patients and staff. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

In this episode we're going to be running through adrenal presentations; both Adrenal insufficiency and Adrenal Crisis. There are some parts of these that aren't completely understood and a lack of a universal definition of Adrenal Crisis, but both insufficiency and a crisis are similar problems at different points on a spectrum and solid understanding of the endocrinology and physiology can really help to improve care in this area. There is huge potential for improving current morbidity and mortality. We'll run through both primary and central adrenal insufficiency, describe how this leads to different effects on mineralocorticoids and glucocorticoids and the signs and symptoms that will occurs as a result.  Many of the patients presenting to the department will be unknown to have adrenal insufficiency and we'll run through those who are at higher risk, including a huge group due to ongoing medication, who may be those on steroid doses much lower than you would previously have considered as significant.  NICE published their most recent guidance on Adrenal Insufficiency in August this year and we'll be referring to a lot of this as we run through the episode.  We'll finish up looking at the critical presentation of Adrenal Crisis and the emergency and ongoing management, along with how we support patients with insufficiency to prevent a crisis occurring.  Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to October's Papers of the Month. We've been really spoilt with three fantastic papers to discuss this month! First up we take a look at the accuracy of non-invasive blood pressure readings in critically unwell patients in the prehospital environment and see how they could falsely reassure in both hypotension and hypertension. Next up we take a look at the superb SHED study, which looks to evaluate the accuracy of a plain CT head in identifying subarachnoid haemorrhage at different time frames. Currently NICE recommend an LP after a negative scan if the scan was performed more than 6 hours from onset. But what does this significant  dataset show and importantly how likely are you to 'miss' an aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage if scanned within the first 24 hours and not following up with an LP? Lastly we look at a paper that highlight the potential benefit of naloxone in out of hospital cardiac arrest in opioid overdose. This delves into priorities in resuscitation, the fundamentals and some possible unexpected physiological effects from naloxone. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

PE's (or Pulmonary Emboli) are a key part of Emergency Care, something that many of us will consider as a differential diagnosis multiple times of a daily basis, in a similar way to acute coronary syndrome, so we need to be absolute experts on the topic! A PE normally occurs when a Deep Vein Thrombosis shoots off to the pulmonary arterial tree, occurring in 60-120 per 100,000 of the population per year The inhospital mortality is 14% and the 90 day mortality is around 20%. But this is proportional to its size, and risk stratifying PE's once we've got the diagnosis is really important. PE is a real diagnostic challenge and less than 1 in 10 who are investigated for a PE end up with the diagnosis, so knowing the risk factors, associated features and thresholds for work up are really important. There are some key concepts in risk stratification and particularly in test thresholds that we'll cover in this episode that are applicable to all of our practice…..we're excited! Getting these right helps us to avoid missing the diagnosis and equally importantly ensure we aren't ‘over testing' & ‘over diagnosing' because investigation and treatment for a PE isn't without it's own risks. In the episode we'll talk in depth about factors associated with presentation, risk factors, investigations and finally onto treatments, covering the whole spectrum from low risk PE's up to those with massive PE's and cardiac arrest. The evidence base behind the work up and treatments is truly fascinating and we hope you find this episode as eye-opening as we did to prepare for! Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back after the summer break! Three more papers for you to feast your ears on this month and as always make sure you go and check them out yourselves after you've had a listen! First up, following on really nicely from the DOSE-VF paper on dual sequential defibrillation we take a look at the paper that looks at the association between shock interval and VF termination. We might be biased but this shines a light on an area that could make a huge difference to the outcomes for patients with refractory VF! Next; when you're seeing a patient with an upper GI bleed, which scoring/prognostication tool do you use and is it the best? We cover a paper that looks at exactly this question. Finally we look at whether TXA predisposes patients to a higher risk of venous thromboembolism and whether it might affect our practice patterns. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

The UK REBOA trial left many with doubts over its utility for trauma patients in ED. The time from injury to its use was around 90 minutes and the trial was stopped when it didn't reduce and maybe even increased mortality compared to standard care alone. But what effect does REBOA have when used prehospitally and how feasible is it? Our first paper, from London HEMS, looks at this and gives a fascinating insight into it's use and the physiological response seen with it. We've recently looked at dual sequential defibrillation for refractory VF with the DOSE-VF trial. Our second paper this month looks at how a double defibrillator strategy, in the context of cardioversion for AF, may affect restoration of sinus rhythm in obese patients. Finally we take a look at the use of video livestreaming from scene to EMS, in a feasibility RCT. How can it affect accurate dispatch of the most appropriate resources and what impact does it have on those that use it? Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

Acute Kidney Injury is common, complicated and holds significant morbidity and mortality. But...if we recognise it, we can make a real difference to our patients' outcomes. In this episode we run through the anatomy, physiology and aetiologies. We have a think about the multitude of definitions of AKI and then take each of the pre renal, renal and post renal categories and think about the ways we can optimise our care in each. We also have a think about who needs to be admitted and who can be safely managed in the community. This was a hugely valuable episode for us all to research and bring clarity to a complicated topic, we hope it does the same for you too! Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

There's a huge paper to talk about this month in the PREOXI trial, a multi centre RCT looking at the pre oxygenation strategy in critically unwell patients undergoing RSI, with patients either getting high flow oxygen through a facemask or NIV. The results are pretty remarkable and may well be practice changing as we'll discuss in the podcast! Next up we take a look at a feasibility of lidocaine patches for older patients with rib fractures and the potential benefit in terms of pain and respiratory complications. Lastly we take a look at the benefit of performing a CT head scan in the Emergency Department for patients with a first fit. At times this can feel like a significant utilisation of resources, but what is the yield of positive scans and impact on patient care? Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

So this month we're looking at major incidents and specifically the triage process that is now coming into play in the UK and further afield that you need to know about! We normally stick pretty strongly to clinical topics; they're pretty easy to focus on because you can imagine how extra knowledge in a certain clinical area could make a difference to presentations that we see pretty commonly. And being brutally honest, making the effort to prepare and rehearse what we might do, on the off chance that we ever come across a major incident, can be difficult to motivate yourself to do. But this is probably an area that investing a bit of time in, really thinking about how you would act in a major incident, could make a phenomenal difference to what may be one of the most, if not the most challenging clinical days of your career. In the episode we run through Ten Second Triage (TST) and the Major Incident Triage Tool (MITT). They replace the previous triage methodologies and are to be implemented by the end of this month. We also cover some other aspects of planning and approach for being the first responder at a major incident, and we were lucky enough to gain some insights to the new triage process from Phil Cowburn, an EM & PHEM consultant who was involved in their development. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to June's Papers of the month! We kick off this month looking at the work up of patients with a first episode of psychosis. With these patients there is a chance of a psychosis secondary to an underlying structural cause. Getting neuro-imaging to look for this prior to psychiatric assessment is tricky though, often with a need for sedation and then the subsequent delay for psychiatric assessment. Our first paper looks at the yield of positive scans for these patients and helps us to understand a bit more about the need for this. Secondly; sepsis screening tools are commonplace in most emergency services and departments, but how do they compare against senior clinician gestalt? Finally we look at the association of gastric distension in cardiac arrest and the rates of ROSC, should we be concentrating more on decompression of gastric volume intra-arrest? Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

We've covered Cardiac Arrest management (as in the medical delivery of it) in a previous Roadside to Resusepsiode. Since then we've had some updates with Paramedic-2, Refractory VF, Airways-2  and a whole host of other papers. But what we haven't talked much about is the art of creating the environment, space & workflow to deliver the best medical care possible.  Whilst these might seem like less exciting and important parts of the package, they probably require a greater degree of skill and knowledge than running the medical aspects of the arrest. To do them with excellence you need to anticipate every single objective/obstacle that could stand in your way, including the medical interventions involved and the challenges of that unique case and environment.  In this episode we run through the aspects of a cardiac arrest right from the initiation of the case to the clearing/transfer to onwards care. We talk about the use of immediate, urgent and definitive plans and then run through how these translate into both in-hospital and prehospital arrests. We personally got a lot out of preparing and thinking about this episode, so we hope you find it useful too! We'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback on this slightly different style of episode either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & James

Welcome back to the podcast and three great papers for May's episode! First up we take a pretty deep look into refractory VF. This follows on from our our review of DOSE-VF in December '22's papers of the month and our recent Roadside to Resus on the topic. In that we discussed the possibility that many of the cases we see at pulse checks as being refractory VF may actually have had 5 seconds or more, post shock, where they jumped out of VF but then reverted back into it. This paper is a secondary analysis of DOSE-VF and reveals what really happen to these 'refractory VFs' by interrogating the defibrillators. What difference will it make to our strategy for recurrent and refractory VF? Next up we take a look at elderly patients presenting to the Emergency Department with abdominal pain with an analysis of the features that predict a serious abdominal condition. Lastly we look at the how different pressures exerted to the facemask when ventilating neonates can make in terms of bradycardia and apnoea. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

Lower back pain is a really common cause for patients to present to primary care, urgent care and emergency care. Thankfully many of these cases are self limiting, but somewhere in the region of 1:300 patients with back pain in the ED will have Cauda Equina Syndrome. Cauda Equina Syndrome is something that is challenging for all clinicians because many patients with simple lower back pain may have many similar symptoms,  but if we miss it, or if there is a delay to surgery that can lead to potentially avoidable long-term disability for our patients and on top of that its a major cause of healthcare litigation. And we're not talking about a delay in weeks being a problem here, we're talking about hours to days, with big  potential complications like impaired bowel/bladder/sexual dysfunction or lower limb paralysis - so you can see why litigation is a big part of some missed cases. In this episode we run through the the signs, symptoms, investigations and treatment with a strong reference back to the underlying anatomy and disruption. We also cover the recently published national Cauda Equina Pathway, which is a great resource but poses some real challenges in it's implementation! Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to the podcast! Three more papers covering topics that are relevant to all of our practice. The importance of removing wet clothes from patients is often discussed, both to prevent hypothermia and increase patient comfort. But how important is it to get wet clothes off and is it something we can defer to a different point? We start off taking a look at an RCT on this very question. Next up another RCT, this time looking at the efficacy of morphine, ibuprofen and paracetamol for patients with closed limb injuries. Which one, or combination, would you think would be most efficacious… Lastly, following on from our most recent Roadside to Resus episode, we take a look at a paper on the association between end tidal CO2 levels and mortality in prehospital patients with suspected traumatic brain injury. This paper highlights really well the need understand the fundamentals that contribute to ETCO2 when applying to clinical practice.  Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

End Tidal CO2, or ETCO2 for short, is something that's talked about pretty often in Emergency and Critical Care and that's because it's used a lot in the assessment and treatment of patients! It's got a big part to play in airway management, resuscitation, sedation and is also increasingly used in other situations. Some of these applications have some pretty strong evidence to back them up but others are definitely worth a deeper thought, because without a sound understanding of ETCO2 we can fall foul of some traps… ETCO2 is a non-invasive measurement of the partial pressure of CO2 in expired gas at the end of exhalation. Ideally we'd like to know what's really going on arterially with the partial pressure of arterial CO2 but we can use the end tidal because that's an easy reading to get from exhaled breath, when it will most closely resemble the alveolar CO2 concentration. Its value is reflective of ventilation but also really importantly is affected by the circulation, the circuit and how it's applied. In the podcast we run through all of these aspects, its application to clinical care and also some of its pitfalls.  Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to the podcast, a new month, three more papers and discussion around the topics. We kick off with a paper comparing mechanical ventilation in CPR compared to the more traditional hand ventilation; what difference does the machine make to ventilation in arrest and should we be changing to this strategy as a standard? We've talked about aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage a fair amount on the podcast and the second paper looks at the effectiveness of lumbar CSF drain compared to standard care with some pretty staggering results! Lastly we take a look at a paper exploring decision making in prehospital trauma, specifically with regard to blood transfusion. This is a great paper to focus on the complexities of decision making, understand decision making strategies, recognise areas of weakness and consider how aspects of these can be used educationally and to improve emergency care for our patients. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

As we all know, rapid and effective resuscitation makes a huge difference to the chance of survival from a cardiac arrest. If you're going to pick a rhythm to have as the patient or as the Resuscitationist, then it's going to be a shockable rhythm, so VF or pulseless VT as they hold the greatest chance of survival. You'll find an initial shockable rhythm in around 20% of cases & defibrillation alone may lead to a ROSC. So it's absolutely imperative to get the immediate management spot on! Whilst current practice is good, there are some aspects of care that we can improve on and make a real difference to outcomes in these patients, with those first on scene or at the bedside in a phenomenally important position to deliver life saving care. In this episode we'll be talking predominantly about refractory VF but the strategy will transfer to how we can also deal with refractory VT cardiac arrests.  We'll be running through all of the following; VF incidence Mechanisms behind VF Refractory and recurrent VF Defibrillation strategies Pharmacological strategies PCI in arrest ECMO Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to February's papers of the month. Syncope is a really common presentation to the Emergency Department and it can be complicated to tease out those with a concerning precipitant from the others with a more benign cause. The first paper gives us some context to the management of these undifferentiated syncopes and provides a barometer for how stringently ESC guidance on the topic is followed. Next up we take a look a huge RCT of transfusion thresholds in patients presenting with a myocardial infarction. Should we be restrictive in our approach, saving a valuable resource, or is it validated to transfuse more liberally in terms of the patients outcome? Finally we take a look at a paper looking to tease out the predictors of post intubation hypotension in those getting a prehospital anaesthetic following trauma, with some interesting associations and factors to looks out for. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

Fever is an incredibly effective mechanism to fight off pathogens. Clearly, whilst many illnesses that cause a fever don't require anything more than the body's natural response, there are some patients in which a fever might represent a serious illness. Differentiating those serious illnesses from self-limiting presentations can be tricky at times, but can also be anxiety provoking for clinicians and parents, or carers of that child.  In children the limited communication can make the diagnostic challenge of the origin of the fever a real challenge, along with the added difficult of gaining some tests. Differentiating those with a benign disease from those with a life threatening presentation can be a daunting challenge. The numbers of presentations to healthcare providers are staggering. Paediatric fever has been reported to represent as high as 15-25% of all presentations in primary care and emergency departments, so massive numbers. Thankfully the prevalence of serious infections in children is low and is estimated at

Happy New Year! We've got some great topic and in person events lined up for 2024 which we'll be able to share some more details about with you soon. This month we look at an RCT of conservative airway management in patients with a low GCS following presentation with acute poisoning. Next up we take a look at paper reviewing our diagnostic ability with dissociative seizures; this gives us some really valuable signs and symptoms to looks for and outlines how we can improve with these presentations. Lastly we look at prognostic scores following out of hospital cardiac arrests with a study that compares four different scores. If reliable they have significant scope to help us to both prognosticate and give valuable information to family and loved ones on their presentation to ED. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

We know it's the festive season but we thought we'd try and cover an issue from which there appears to be no escape and is a particular problem at this time of year, queuing! Whether we like it or not, this has become a factor for all of us working in emergency care, whether its delays getting your patient into the department, queueing down the corridor into ED, a prolonged stay in ED for an appropriate ward, or even in a physical queue to get out of the ED and onto an appropriate bed! We are looking after our patients for significantly longer than we're used to and this pushes the patient and the clinician into an area of care in which we have limited experience and comfort. Rather than accepting delays and ignoring their inevitable impact on patient care, we need to move towards equipping ourselves with the skills and knowledge to fill that care vacuum and ensure that excellence in patient care continues throughout their time with the ambulance service. So with that in mind, in this episode we're going to think about some of the considerations and interventions that are required to ensure our patients remain safe and comfortable throughout their queueing experience. And to do that we're going to draw on the concept of prolonged field care. An article by Aehbric O'Kelley and Tom Mallinson recently authored a paper published in Journal of paramedic practice entitled “Prolonged field care principles in UK paramedic practice”. That article really provided the idea and stimulus for this episode, so thanks to them for all of the hard work and once you've listened to us waffle on you should head across to their paper for a far more eloquent explanation of it all! Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon, Rob & James

We've talked about Aortic Dissection before in our Roadside to Resus episode and the huge difficulties in picking out these rare but potentially devastating cases and this month we've got a fantastic paper on the topic! The DAShED study looks at patients presenting with symptoms that could be suggestive of aortic dissection and helps us understand the diagnostic challenge and approach to acute aortic syndrome, along with testing the characteristics of a number of decision tools. Next up we look at a paper from Bendszus, an RCT of medical versus thrombectomy and medical treatment for acute ischaemic strokes with a large infarct, with some really powerful results. Finally we look at a paper that shows some staggeringly different ROSC rates for patients in cardiac arrest depending on the size of the ventilation bag used! Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

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

Well this has been a huge month for Emergency Medicine and Critical Care in terms of papers! We start off looking at REBOA; many resuscitationist's favourite concept or device with the much awaited UK-REBOA trial. What does the paper mean for practice in our Resus Rooms? Is this about to become a key part of trauma management? The paper is fascinating and one of the most though provoking we've discussed in a while. Next up we look at CROYSTAT-2, another such anticipated trial looking at whether survival could be improved by administering an early and empirical high dose of cryoprecipitate to all patients with trauma and bleeding that required activation of a major hemorrhage protocol. Finally we look at a paper which describes a taxonomy of key performance errors in intubation and may inform our review and improvement of intubation in the ED. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

In this episode we're going to cover the ‘atraumatic' or ‘spontaneous' pneumothoraces and focus on some new key guidelines from the British Thoracic Society which came out in July this year and also look at the relevant evidence on the topic. There are pretty significant changes in the BTS guidance, it's no longer about finding a pneumothorax, working out if it's primary or secondary and then acting dependant on the size. It's now moved more towards looking at how the patient is clinically, taking into account the symptomatology, any big risk characteristics, whether it's primary or secondary and then thinking about the patients wishes and priorities and nuancing the management plan towards those.  This episode builds on some of the concepts we discussed in our Traumatic Pneumothorax podcast, so make sure you give that one a listen before clicking play on this one! We'll be looking at the presentation, evidence, management and follow up, along with some trials that you can get involved in to help develop practice even further. Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back! This month we kick off looking at an RCT which looks at whether we should convey patients with a ROSC from a likely cardiac cause (without a STEMI in their ECG) to a cardiac arrest centre, or whether they would be as well served at their local Emergency Department. This paper has huge potential implications for service design for cardiac arrest patients. Next up we look at another RCT evaluating if patients with a suspected uncomplicated appendicitis who have urgent surgical intervention benefit in terms of a reduced perforation rate, when compared with those who have surgery within 24 hours. Lastly we take a look at the use of bicarbonate, calcium and magnesium in cardiac arrest and see if there use is supported in a huge cardiac arrest registry. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom! Simon & Rob

Delivering excellent End of Life Care in the Emergency Care is a real challenge but also a huge privilege and has formed some of the most rewarding parts of our careers to date. We've been really keen to End of Life Care as a topic for a while now. Many, if not all of you, will have been out to these patients or received them in your ED.  They aren't simple cases to manage, with lots of issues around scope of practice, lack of alternative care pathways, confusion surrounding legal documentation and many studies have identified a lack of education around palliative care. In this episode we'll do our best to demystify those medico-legal terms, talk about care pathways and options that may be available to us, have a think about how we can talk with patients about death and then go on to discuss the clinical care we might need to deliver and the wider holistic nature of caring for these patients and their loved ones. We're lucky enough to be joined by Ed Presswood, who's a palliative care consultant and clearly an expert on the topic. We gained a massive amount from this episode and we hope you find it really useful too. You'll find the hyperlinks to some fantastic resources on the topic over on the webpage at TheResusRoom. Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to the podcast, coming to you all the way from Australia! Rob and James were fortunate enough to be invited to deliver the keynote and an airway masterclass at this year's Australian College of Paramedicine International Conference. At what was an amazing meeting, they were lucky enough to be able to catch up with some of the fantastic speakers to hear the key parts of their talks. In this episode you'll hear from; Richard Armour, Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance Paramedic at Ambulance Victoria and PhD Candidate at Monash University; Identifying patients requiring chest compressions at overdose prevention sites Nick Roder, MICA Flight Paramedic Educator, Ambulance Victoria and Teaching Associate, Monash University; Intubation in the setting of airways and inhalation burns Dr Tegwyn McManamny, Intensive Care Paramedic and Lead Patient Review Specialist, Ambulance Victoria; Care of the Older Person - Delirium and Paramedic Detective Olivia Hedges, Palliative Care Connect Lead, Ambulance Victoria; Palliative Care Connect Program Chelsea Lanos, Advanced Care & Community Paramedic Researcher; Organ donation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Canada - a potential role for paramedics A huge thanks to ACP for the invite, Zoll for the support of the podcast and conference and to the fantastic speakers for giving ip their time to talk to us. We'll be back with another Roadside to Resus episode for you next week on End of Life Care. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom and we'll see you back in September! Rob & James

Welcome back to the podcast! We're back with three really interesting papers after our summer break, with some great points to think about with regards to our practice and patient outcomes. First up we take a look at the CT FIRST study which looks at the benefit of whole body CT in patients presenting with a ROSC after their out of hospital cardiac arrest with no obvious cause. Should we be more liberal in our imaging requests in this patient cohort? Next up we have a think about thrombolysis for massive PEs. When it comes to these patients we have to consider the very real potential complications of thrombolysis and that can often dissuade us from treating them. This paper looks at an alternative dose in thrombolysis and describes some really interesting results. Finally we take a look at a CT study which is scanning trauma patients after they have died. What injury patterns do they find, which injuries would have been amenable to treatment and are there any lessons on practice to be learnt? Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom and we'll see you back in September! Simon & Rob

Welcome back, this is our last podcast before our short summer break! We start off having a look at the physiological effects of prolonged resuscitation with a supraglottic device compared with endotracheal intubation, which raises some really interesting questions about our ongoing ventilation strategy in resuscitations. Next up we look at an RCT comparing RSI to DSI in critically injured patients and the effect on peri-intubation hypoxia. Finally we take a look at the practice of lateral canthotomy for retrobulbar haemorrhage/orbital compartment syndrome. How effective is the procedure and how competent are EM clinicians compared to Opthalmogists? Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom and we'll see you back in September! Simon & Rob

So in this episode we're going to run though the primary survey in trauma. This clinical assessment helps us identify and treat life threatening injuries and to rapidly intervene and correct them, so getting it right really matter1.  How this is done is hugely dependant upon the setting (either pre or in-hospital) as it is affected by the access to the patient, the number of people there to contribute to care and the challenges that the scene or hospital environment might hold. We run through a model of primary survey that looks to gain as much information as possible in a rapid and effective pattern and discuss the slightly different approaches we all take, along with  rationale behind them. Finally we cover the communication of the primary survey to the team, strategies that we can undertake to achieve this and how this can affect the momentum and onwards care of the patient.  We found this a really useful topic to consider in some depth and we hope it's of use to you too! Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James

There have been some huge trials released over the last month and we've got three brilliant papers to discuss! First up we take a look at an RCT on video versus direct laryngoscopy for patients requiring emergency intubation with the DEVICE trial. The VL versus DL debate has been ongoing for quite some time now, so is this a final nail in the coffin for DL? Next up we take a look at an RCT of prehospital TXA use in patients at risk of bleeding from major trauma in the PATCH trial. The results seen in the trial look at a glance to oppose those seen in CRASH-2, so is this the end of TXA in this cohort of patients? Finally we have a great paper giving us further information on whether we should we be initiating immediate antihypertensive treatment for patients admitted to hospital with asymptomatic hypertension. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom. Simon & Rob

This is the first of two episodes looking at pneumothoraces. In this episode we're going to start out by taking a look at traumatic pneumothoraces. Traumatic pneumothoraces are present in about a fifth of multiple trauma patients, so it's not infrequent to come across them and they can obviously occur in those with isolated chest injury too. Thoracic trauma occurs in around two thirds of multi-trauma cases and is classified as the primary cause of death in a quarter of trauma patients. The clinical assessment carries with it a fair amount of dogma, including looking for tensions with tracheal deviation, so we'll be running through what the signs we should look for actually mean. Then we'll move on to a detailed discussion about investigation strategies before finally looking at the guidelines and evidence on the topic, including which we have to intervene with, which we probably shouldn't and those in which there is much uncertainty... Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James ps; if you're interested in getting your site involved with the CoMITED Trial then email comited-trial@bristol.ac.uk 

Welcome back to the podcast and to the first episode in collaboration with our new sponsors Zoll, a huge thanks to them in their support of free open access medical education! First off this month we return to the topic of rib fractures; with an apparent shift in practice to the surgical fixation of multiple rib fractures, we take a look at an early vs late approach and consider the impact these results may have on trauma systems. Next up it's a prehospital RCT assessing the use of a prehospital strategy including a single troponin to rule out acute coronary syndrome. Will this prove safe when compared to an in hospital strategy and what impact does it have on prehospital resources? Finally we look at ventilation rates in cardiac arrest management. For as long as we can remember the guidance has been to ventilate at ten breaths per minute, but will a strategy involving a faster ventilatory rate yield better results? Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom. Simon & Rob

The last time we took a good look at head injuries was back in 2018 in our Roadside to Resus episodes and for all of the foundational stuff on incidence, assessment, management and loads more  make sure you go and check that episode out.  But this episode is one of our new UPDATES episodes, because we're pretty old now… and whilst we've been having a go at this for a while evidence and guidelines will have progressed, which clearly have implications on how we manage certain cases and that's where these come in! So they'll focus mainly on the last 5 years of practice. The new NICE head injury guidance has just been released and it's the first major overhaul since 2014.  Now we know it's a UK guideline, but there's some really key practice updates and evidence in there that's relevant irrespective of where you find yourself listening this!  So in this episode we're going to be having a look at the most recent TXA evidence, with in terms of indications, timing and dosing. We'll be having a look at the risk of intracerebral injury with regards to anticoagulants and antiplatelet agents and a few other bits and pieces that can help us inform and improve our care. Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James

This month we start off with a paper looking at the first pass success rate of intubation in cardiac arrest when performing continual CPR versus pausing. We then come on to two really interesting diagnostic papers and our prehospital accuracy for identifying certain injuries; we take a look at the accuracy of HEMS clinicians in assessing the stability of a pelvic ring and subsequent application of a pelvic binder. And then we look at the accuracy of prehospital clincians in assessing for all life and limb threatening injuries. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom. Simon & Rob

Being in a situation of being unable to intubate and unable to oxygenate is an absolute time critical emergency.  Focus needs to be paid to the techniques and strategy to deal with this situation. But we also need to consider steps to ensure it occurs at a low frequency and our decision making and recognition of the situation happens quickly and simply. In the episode we're going to be talking about a number of other aspects that are relevant for all emergency providers, irrespective of whether you intubate or not, along with how those aspects translate into everyday practice.  We'll be covering bits around patient positioning, optimising simple ventilation via a BVM & supraglottics, all the way through to needle cricothyroidotomy and surgical airways. Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James

Welcome back to the podcast! This month we start off thinking about sepsis, specifically fluid management and whether a restrictive approach to fluid resuscitation in combination with earlier vasopressors is advantageous over a liberal approach. Next we have a look at a study evaluating the diagnostic benefit of ultrasound in the prehospital setting. Finally we have a think about the benefit that traumatic brain injury patients may benefit from with regards to beta blocker therapy. Once again we'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via twitter @TheResusRoom. Simon & Rob

So NOF's aren't the most glamorous of topics to cover on a podcast, but the difference we can make to patients but refining our care is huge.  Neck of femur fractures have a high and increasing incidence. They occur predominantly in frail patients who have the greatest risk of complications, both from the injury and medical interventions.  In this episode we'll be running through their presentation, discuss both the clinical and radiological diagnostics. We'll also be looking in depth about both pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods of pain relief and have a think about where fascia-iliaca compartment blocks sit with regards to pre and in- hospital practice.  Finally we'll move on to the definitive surgical approach and in-hospital care. Once again we'd love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James