Cliff Reid of Resus.Me fame put out an incredible post on NAP4, the audit done on all of the airway complications in Great Britain. It was such a phenomenal post that I got in touch with Cliff and asked if he wanted to come on the podcast to speak about it. He did me one better and got an interview with one of the authors of the Emergency and Critical Care Section.

So in this podcast, we interview Dr. Jonathan Benger, professor of Emergency Medicine with a particular interest in the management of the airway.

Points that came out of the show

* Mortality is higher in the ED and ICU compared to the operating room. Our patients are sicker, so we must be more diligent in planning

* Quantitative wave-form ETCO2 should be the standard of care for EVERY ED and ICU intubation

* Needle cricothyrotomy seems to fail more often than surgical cricothyrotomy

* Awake intubation was not used when it was indicated

* Junior resident anesthesiologists were often responding to the ED and ICU

* There was a failure to plan for failure

* Obesity figured into a large percentage of the airway disasters

* Airway operators were not prepared or just did not properly progress to surgical airway

For more from the NAP4

Executive Summary

Full Report (Skip to the EM/ICU Chapter)

How to subscribe to Cliff Reid's Brand New Podcast

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Great Conferences Coming Up

* Essentials of Emergency Medicine in San Francisco - November 9-12

* Emergency Medicine in the Developing World in Capetown - November 15-17