Smacc

Two legends of medical education, doctors Johnathan Sherbino and Robert Cooney go head to head debating whether assessment is a barrier to learning. Sherbino argues that assessment is in fact a first essential step in the learning process.

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Making Teams Work - Chris Hicks In Chris Hicks talk Making Teams work, Hicks discusses the systematic failures in training ourselves and our trainees for chaotic situations. He challenges the assumptions that people learn over time by osmosis (by just watching) and debunks the idea that by watching physicians will become skilled at soft non-technical skills.   Hicks goes on to discuss what makes a high performing team - touching on;  Shared mental model of team and task.  Implicit co-ordination/communication And, how to create this in an ad hoc team.     Hicks then discusses emergency specific team training and the results they are seeing by implementing programs such as; CREW Training - Crisis Resources Emergency Workers, Stress Inoculation Training and Mental Simulation Training. Hicks finished by explaining how best physicians and medical staff can implement these trainings and skills into the real world practice. 

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Rapid response systems (RRSs) have become a routine part of the way patients are managed in general wards of acute care hospitals. They have been adopted by national health and safety organisations in North America, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia and are increasingly being used in other parts of the world. Studies have almost universally shown significant reductions in outcome indicators such as mortality (up to one third) and cardiac arrest rates (up to 50%). However the validity of these outcomes is questionable as most of these studies are single-centre, before-and-after studies conducted by one or two clinical champions in Rapid Response. This presentation reveals that the implementation of an Intensivist led Rapid Response Team in an Australian quaternary hospital did not demonstrate such dramatic results. In fact, after one year of service the standardised mortality ratio and the in-hospital cardiac arrest rate remained similar. The presentation explores some of the operational impacts of a RR

Poisons and novel agents are a moving target in the clinical arena. This talk begins with a historical look at decontamination and pitfalls that have been discovered along the way. The advent of intubation and critical care was a major boon in the improvement in mortality from poisoning. The Scandinavian Method is described and is an important lesion to this day. The rise of antidotes is mentioned.   Emerging drugs are highlighted in the context of where we have come from. The phenylethylamine compound structure and corresponding variants are described. The importance of the principles of supportive care as learned in the Scandinavian method is emphasized. Other emerging topics including synthetic cannabinoids, and anti-NMDA receptor antagonists are discussed. Emerging interventions of prescription naloxone, and ED ECMO are outlined. High vigilance for new agents, and innovative treatments will enable clinicians deal with these evolving trends.

Is There a Doctor on the Plane? Summary by: Joe Lex How Common Are In-Flight Emergencies?• Occur on one in every 600 flights• 44,000 of 2.75B airline passengers / year What Are Most Common Emergencies• Lightheadedness or fainting ~37%• Respiratory problems ~12%• Nausea or vomiting ~10%• Cardiac symptoms ~8%• Seizures ~6%• Other Emergencies• Laceration ~0.3%• Cardiac arrest ~0.3%• Ear pain ~0.4%• Obstetrical or gynecological symptoms ~0.5%• Headache ~1% Who Responds to the Call?• Physician passenger responds in ~48%• Nurse passenger responds in ~20%• EMT passenger responds in ~5% Minimum first aid kits on commercial airliners16 Adhesive bandage compressors, 1 in20 Antiseptic Swabs10 Ammonia Inhalants8 Bandage compressors, 4 in5 Triangular bandage compressors, 40 in1 Arm splint, non inflatable1 Leg splint, non inflatable4 Roller bandage, 4 in2 Adhesive tape, 1 in standard roll1 Bandage Scissors2 Protective latex gloves pair2 Insect sting relief pad2 Triple antibiotic ointment2 First Aid/burn cream, 9 gm.2 Povid

Don't Forget A & B! Over 500,000 patients per year suffer sudden cardiac arrest. Despite advances in our understanding and management of cardiac arrest, less than 15% of patients survive to hospital discharge with meaningful neurologic survival. In recent years, the focus of cardiac arrest resuscitation has been the delivery of high-quality chest compressions and early defibrillation for those with a shockable rhythm. As a result, airway interventions and ventilation now follow attempts to optimize circulation in cardiac arrest patients. Though high-quality CPR and early defibrillation are essential in the initial stages of resuscitation, advanced airway placement and appropriate ventilation are critical to overall patient survival. Dr. Winters' discusses the current literature on the timing of advanced airway placement, oxygenation, and ventilation for the cardiac arrest patient. In addition, he discusses optimal targets for oxygenation and ventilation in the patient with return of spontaneous circulatio

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-hospi

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

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 famili

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 o

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

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

Are you ready for this rumble in the urban jungle?? Chris Ho vs Joe Bellezzo in the no holds barred debate about whether ECMO CPR is a step too far? The next cage match from SMACC Chicago. Chris and Joe are the director and vice-director respectively, of Emergency Medicine at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, California. They are two of the leading experts in ECPR, with Joe being one of the key players behind EDECMO. On a day-to-day basis, they are friends and colleagues, working together in one of the very few centers around the world to deliver ECPR. However in this Cage Match, friends become foe and there are no limitations to how far each will go to prove their side of the debate. On the AFFIRMATIVE side, Chris Ho delivers a convincing argument for why ECPR IS a step too far. From lack of evidence to the cost of “re-animating the dead” and everything in between, Chris Ho delivers a practical approach to the argument and demonstrates without a doubt why we are not ready for this to be the next step in