You're called to see a very sick person on the ward in the middle of the night. You send off some investigations and because they are sick you take some arterial blood for blood gas analysis. You ring the boss who asks you what the blood gases indicate. A bead of sweat breaks out on your forehead as you realise that you have no idea what the numbers on the blood gas print out mean. There goes the reference......
But then you realise that you can interpret blood gases after all, because you have watched these 2 podcasts where James Blackwell gets Tim Watkins to explain what's going on.
In part 1 what an ABG is, why it is performed is explained and the common components of the print out are demystified.
James Blackwell is an Academic F2 doctor and Tim Watkins is a Consultant Anaesthetist, both at the Royal Derby Hospital, UK