EMCrit

Background:  Devil in the details Airway management is a detail-oriented sport.  Minor nuances of patient positioning can be essential.  Or gentle laryngeal manipulation.  Apneic oxygenation can improve first-pass success.  Placing the pulse oximeter on the same arm as the blood pressure cuff can cause real headache.  Failure to recognize and remove dentures is an enormous … [Read more...]

Follow-up data from the PEITHO trial shows that thrombolytics don't affect long-term morbidity.  This simplifies management substantially. PEITHO trial & long-term follow up The PEITHO trial was a multi-center RCT investigating the effect of thrombolysis in submassive PE.  Tenecteplase caused an increase in intracranial hemorrhage and a reduction in hemodynamic collapse.  … [Read more...]

Sepsis resuscitation generally focuses on hemodynamics.  Rivers of ink have been spilled writing about oxygen delivery and fluid responsiveness.  This is clearly important, but it's possible that our focus on easily observable phenomena has led us to ignore something of equal importance: metabolic resuscitation.  We can deliver all the oxygen we want to the tissues, but if the … [Read more...]

Imagine you went to buy an expensive piece of clothing.  Rather than measuring your size, the store owner simply said "well, on average most folks require a medium, so let's try that on, we can always re-size it later."  You would be irritated that they were wasting your time.  When you go clothes shopping, you expect measurement to be made so that the clothes fit right the … [Read more...]

Hypertriglyceridemia causes ~9% of pancreatitis, the third most common cause after alcohol and gallstones.  It is a risk factor for severe pancreatitis, making it more frequent among ICU patients with pancreatitis.  I see this a few times each year.  Nonetheless, it has low penetration into educational curricula or our collective awareness.The treatment of … [Read more...]