Asthma is a common disease and presents to acute healthcare services extremely frequently. The majority of presentations are mild exacerbations of a known diagnosis and are relatively simple to assess and treat, many being completely appropriate for out patient treatment. On the other hand around 200 deaths per year are attributable in the UK to [...]
Here are the papers that caught our eye over the last month, many of these will go onto form the topics for our monthly podcasts and topics which you can subscribe to here. Airway The occurrence of aspiration pneumonia after emergency endotracheal intubation. Driver BE, et al. Am J Emerg Med. 2017. Does the Use of Video Laryngoscopy Improve Intubation [...]
We're back with more great papers for you this month, hot off the press! There's been a lot of talk over the last few years about apnoeic oxygenation and whether it really holds any benefit to patients undergoing RSI, we have a look at a systematic review that may help answer that question. Next up [...]
This is the first of what we hope will be a permanent feature, of the Roadside to Resus podcasts. We've been joined by James Yates, a Critical Care Paramedic with the Great Western Air Ambulance to make it a truly multidisciplinary team. Each monthly episode we'll be discussing acute presentations, including the latest and most [...]
C-spine immobilisation is a controversial topic because of a lack of high quality evidence from clinical trials. Historical approaches have been challenged, however NICE guidance continues to recommend 3-point immobilisation for all patients with suspected spinal injury despite considerable clinical equipoise. In this episode we discuss the complexities of balancing the risks and harms when [...]
Here are the papers that caught our eye over the last month, many of these will go onto form the topics for our monthly podcasts and topics which you can subscribe to here. Cardiac Arrest Prehospital advanced cardiac life support for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a cohort study. Cournoyer A, et al. Acad Emerg Med. 2017. Double sequential defibrillation therapy for [...]
We're back with 3 superb topics this month! First off we have a look at the utility of ultrasound for the detection of pneumothoraces in the context of blunt trauma. Next we look at the need to scan facial bones when scanning a patient's head following trauma. Last of all we look at a paper reviewing the association [...]
I was faced with this situation when called to support an ambulance crew who were resuscitating an out-of-hospital VF arrest. When benchmarked against the ALS guidelines their management had been exemplary, but the patient remained in VF after eight shocks. So what now? The UK Resuscitation Council doesn’t specifically discuss rVF, but offers the advice that it is “usually worthwhile continuing” if the patient remains in VF. Not a particularly controversial statement, but not [...]
High quality manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with minimal delays has been shown to improve outcomes following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). There are concerns that the quality of CPR can diminish over time and as little as 1 minute of CPR can lead to fatigue and deviation from the current recommended rate and depth of compressions. [...]
Asthma is a common disease and presents to acute healthcare services extremely frequently. The majority of presentations are mild exacerbations of a known diagnosis and are relatively simple to assess and treat, many being completely appropriate for out patient treatment. On the other hand around 200 deaths per year are attributable in the UK to [...] 
Here are the papers that caught our eye over the last month, many of these will go onto form the topics for our monthly podcasts and topics which you can subscribe to here. Airway The occurrence of aspiration pneumonia after emergency endotracheal intubation. Driver BE, et al. Am J Emerg Med. 2017. Does the Use of Video Laryngoscopy Improve Intubation [...] 
We're back with more great papers for you this month, hot off the press! There's been a lot of talk over the last few years about apnoeic oxygenation and whether it really holds any benefit to patients undergoing RSI, we have a look at a systematic review that may help answer that question. Next up [...] 
This is the first of what we hope will be a permanent feature, of the Roadside to Resus podcasts. We've been joined by James Yates, a Critical Care Paramedic with the Great Western Air Ambulance to make it a truly multidisciplinary team. Each monthly episode we'll be discussing acute presentations, including the latest and most [...] 
C-spine immobilisation is a controversial topic because of a lack of high quality evidence from clinical trials. Historical approaches have been challenged, however NICE guidance continues to recommend 3-point immobilisation for all patients with suspected spinal injury despite considerable clinical equipoise. In this episode we discuss the complexities of balancing the risks and harms when [...] 
Here are the papers that caught our eye over the last month, many of these will go onto form the topics for our monthly podcasts and topics which you can subscribe to here. Cardiac Arrest Prehospital advanced cardiac life support for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a cohort study. Cournoyer A, et al. Acad Emerg Med. 2017. Double sequential defibrillation therapy for [...] 
We're back with 3 superb topics this month! First off we have a look at the utility of ultrasound for the detection of pneumothoraces in the context of blunt trauma. Next we look at the need to scan facial bones when scanning a patient's head following trauma. Last of all we look at a paper reviewing the association [...] 
I was faced with this situation when called to support an ambulance crew who were resuscitating an out-of-hospital VF arrest. When benchmarked against the ALS guidelines their management had been exemplary, but the patient remained in VF after eight shocks. So what now? The UK Resuscitation Council doesn’t specifically discuss rVF, but offers the advice that it is “usually worthwhile continuing” if the patient remains in VF. Not a particularly controversial statement, but not [...] 
High quality manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with minimal delays has been shown to improve outcomes following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). There are concerns that the quality of CPR can diminish over time and as little as 1 minute of CPR can lead to fatigue and deviation from the current recommended rate and depth of compressions. [...]