Tamingthesru

Air Care Orientation Curriculum, Prehospital Medicine, Procedural Education Jeffery Hill, MD M.Ed Air Care Orientation Curriculum, Prehospital Medicine, Procedural Education Jeffery Hill, MD M.Ed

Finger Thoracostomy

We talked about needle thoracostomy a while back and when we did, we talked about the propensity for the needle to fail.  There are a lot of reasons why the needle could fail to relieve a tension pneumothorax (or to only temporarily relieve a tension pneumothorax).  The needle may be too short to enter the thorax in the first place* or the catheter could kink, allowing reaccumulation of air in the thorax.

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IC Cordes, Procedural Education Steven Carleton, MD PhD IC Cordes, Procedural Education Steven Carleton, MD PhD

The Decision to Intubate

The I.C. Cordes College of Airway Knowledge, written by Dr. Steven Carleton, is known to many who have passed through our doors.  Today, however, we begin to set them free to the #FOAMed world starting off with I.C. Cordes #1 - The Decision to Intubate.  I felt like I had found a mint copy of the Amazing Fantasy Introducing Spiderman comic book or a Honus Wagner baseball card receiving these collected cases by email from Dr. Carleton earlier today. - Jeffery Hill, MD

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Air Care Orientation Curriculum, Prehospital Medicine Bill Hinckley, MD Air Care Orientation Curriculum, Prehospital Medicine Bill Hinckley, MD

Transporting Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump Patients by Air Care

Many historians argue that the first use of aeromedical evacuation was during the Siege of Paris in 1870, using hot air balloons (though there seems to be some question regarding the truth of this claim).  We're still using balloons during air medical missions in 2014, albeit in a much different way.

The efficacy of IABPs has recently been called into question; see Cliff Reid's recent blog post at http://resus.me/double-balloon-pump-fail/ .  Regardless, the decision to initiate IABP therapy isn't going to be ours.  But the challenge of moving an extraordinarily sick patient receiving this therapy WILL be ours.  We must be ready.  How?

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