Breaking Trials: ITACS Trial on Preoperative IV Iron for Anaemia Before Cardiac Surgery
TopMedTalk
Recorded at the excellent ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2025 in San Antonio. Hear Andy Cumpstey and Mike Grocott interview Paul Myles, a Professor of Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Here we focus upon his group’s approach to large pragmatic, multicenter international trials and the process of selecting and developing study questions within a clinical trials network. Miles presents the ITACS trial (intravenous iron treatment for anaemia before cardiac surgery), designed because anaemia is common (~30%) in elective cardiac surgery and is associated...
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EBPOM London 2026: European Postoperative Care Pathways
TopMedTalk
This presentation was recorded at the Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) 2026 Annual Global Meeting. It features Nicolai Bang-Foss, Consultant, head of GI and orthopaedic anaesthesia, Hvidovre University Hospital, Denmark His main research field is the perioperative care of the elderly emergency patient. Specific areas of research have been regional analgesia, transfusion thresholds, outreach programs and perioperative logistics as well as perioperative haemodynamics. He describes wide European variation in postoperative pathways driven largely by ICU bed capacity, with Scandinavian...
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Breaking Trials: The VITAL trial on TIVA, volatiles and outcome
TopMedTalk
Recorded at the Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress in London this episode of TopMedTalk sees Andy Cumpstey speaking with a panel of experts about the VITAL trial: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial about volatile vs total intravenous anaesthesia (TIVA) for major non-cardiac surgery in adult patients. The primary outcome was days alive and out of hospital at 30 days. Despite finding no significant differences in the primary outcome, the trial reveals that patients receiving TIVA anesthesia experience better recovery, with less postoperative nausea and other side...
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ANZCA ASM: Emerging Leaders
TopMedTalk
At the ANZCA Annual Scientific Meeting in Auckland, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey discuss ANZCA’s Emerging Leaders Conference (ELC), a retreat-style program held immediately before the ASM for clinicians within five years of achieving FANZCA, with allowances for career disruptions. Their guests, Dr Saana Taylor FANZCA and Dr Vik Singh FANZCA, co-conveners of this year's ELC, describe shaping this year’s New Zealand-hosted ELC with an Aotearoa focus, naming it Te Herenga Matua (“the pursuit of consciousness”) and emphasizing collaboration, communication, wellbeing, compassion, and...
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SOAP 2026: Ron George on community, partnerships, and expanding peripartum anaesthesia
TopMedTalk
From the 58th annual meeting of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) in Montreal, Mike Grocott and new co-host Joe Larvin speak with SOAP president Ron George about SOAP’s growth to over 1,000 attendees and its international, collaborative community. George outlines his career from Dalhousie to UCSF and back to Canada as director of obstetric anesthesia at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, highlighting its high-risk referral practice and large, internationally diverse fellowship program. He reflects on his presidency’s focus on mission alignment and partnerships,...
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TopMedTalk Classic: Should direct laryngoscopy be consigned to the history books?
TopMedTalk
This classic TopMedTalk piece was originally cast in April 2020. The debate 'Direct laryngoscopes should be consigned to history', was hosted by The Royal College Of Anaesthetists and carried out by our two guests on this piece, where the debate is outlined in advance. We get into the advantages and challenges behind the two techniques; video laryngoscopy and direct laryngoscopy. The conversation explores the fact that these skills are a key part of the job of practitioners, are we "de-skilling" the profession in an overly enthusiastic race toward new technology or are some resisting it simply...
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Euroanaesthesia 2026: Hot Topics in General Anaesthesiology with Laszlo Vutskits and Hugh Hemmings
TopMedTalk
Live from Euroanaesthesia 2026 in Rotterdam, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey speak with Laszlo Vutskits and Hugh Hemmings ahead of the “Hot Topics in General Anaesthesiology” lecture. Vutskits discusses reports of devastating neurologic outcomes after minor procedures in previously healthy patients, linked in a Spanish series to a shared mitochondrial DNA haplotype traced to Venezuela, including a rare ND4 complex I mutation; cybrid and fibroblast experiments showed clinically relevant sevoflurane rapidly suppresses oxidative phosphorylation but reversibly on washout, while propofol (tested...
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Perioperative Profile: Alan Merry
TopMedTalk
Recorded live at the ANZCA Annual Scientific Meeting in Auckland, Kate Leslie interviews Professor Alan Merry for a perioperative profile, covering his retirement from clinical practice, ongoing research supervision, and work on environmental sustainability. Merry recounts being raised by a single mother in Zimbabwe, studying medicine at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Harare, and moving to New Zealand amid the Rhodesian Bush War. He describes entering anaesthesia after initially planning psychiatry, then becoming involved in New Zealand medical manslaughter law reform following...
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The Lancet Surgery and Anaesthesiology: A New Journal for Perioperative Medicine
TopMedTalk
At the EBPOM World Congress in London; TopMedTalk’s Andy Cumpsty sits down for an exclusive interview with Amy Slogrove, editor-in-chief of the new journal, The Lancet Surgery and Anaesthesiology, ahead of its public launch on 20 July and a planned first issue in early 2027. Dr Slogrove, a South Africa–based pediatrician and epidemiologist, explains the journal’s aim - to bring surgery and anaesthesiology together across the perioperative space, emphasizing research integrity, rigor, and ethics, supported by clinical peer review. She outlines the editorial team, submission route via ,...
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TopMedTalk AI: Identifying How AI Can Help in Intensive Care
TopMedTalk
Recorded live at the EBPOM World Congress in London, this episode of TopMedTalk AI features host James Bowness and co-host Amy Gomes speaking with Joe Harris, anaesthesia resident and Innovation Fellow in Anaesthesia at University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Foundation Trust and Sanjay Wijayatilake, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Neuro Intensive Care MedicineBarking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust about “AI demand signaling” in intensive care. Harris explains the demand-signaling method—surveying clinicians on key problems, translating these into candidate...
info_outlineThis question and answer session was a highlight of EBPOM London 2020, it works as a standalone piece or as a companion piece to this talk here: https://topmedtalk.libsyn.com/ebpom-2020-london-am-i-safe
The discussion follows themes outlined in the presentation as our online audience asked a series of questions.
Some of the questions included in the discussion are "How should leaders deal with anxiety both in themselves and their team? What is the evidence on perceived command gradient in residents and the fear of looking inadequate in front of peers and superiors? Bad for patients, versus bad for me? The people at the top end, the older people within an organization, are often the most resistant to culture change, yet they have the most influence over culture, any advice? What defines the people who are ready for change?"
Conversational in tone this piece was first heard on the "TopMedTalk stage" at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) for more details go now to www.ebpom.org
Presented by Monty Mythen and Desiree Chappell with Lee Fleisher, Emeritus Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, University of Pennsylvania.