Decision Making, Prioritisation, Leadership & EBM; 50 Shades of Critical Care Roadside to Resus
Release Date: 12/11/2024
June 2025; papers of the month
The Resus Room
Welcome back to June 2025's papers podcast! Having been cynical about CPR feedback devices in the past we take a look at a recent paper on their use and their potential impact to both ROSC and survival for patients, when compared to standard practice; is it time to integrate them more definitively into our practice? Next up we take another look at the use of adrenaline in traumatic arrest. We've covered this before and there's some interesting data and discussion to be had around the topic and the paper. Finally, we all know about the unprecidented pressure on ED’s and all forms of...
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GCS; Roadside to Resus
The Resus Room
Welcome back! In this episode, we’re diving deep into something we all think we know, the Glasgow Coma Scale. The GCS has been a fundamental part of assessing patients with altered consciousness for over 50 years. You’ll find it in trauma scores, neurology exams and practically every prehospital and ED handover. But here's the thing, is it as reliable and useful as we think? In this episode, we’ll explore the origins of the scale, what it was designed for and how it’s been used (and maybe misused...) since. We take a look at how reproducible it really is, particularly when different...
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May 2025; papers of the month
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,...
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Opioid Overdose; Roadside to Resus
The Resus Room
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...
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April 2025; papers of the month
The Resus Room
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...
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Electrical Injuries; Roadside to Resus
The Resus Room
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...
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March 2025; papers of the month
The Resus Room
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...
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Maternal Arrest; Roadside to Resus
The Resus Room
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...
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February 2025; papers of the month
The Resus Room
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...
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Bronchiolitis; Roadside to Resus
The Resus Room
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...
info_outlineThis 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