The Resus Room

Cauda Equina Syndrome; Roadside to Resus

Lower back pain is a really common cause for patients to present to primary care, urgent care and emergency care. Thankfully many of these cases are self limiting, but somewhere in the region of 1:300 patients with back pain in...

April 2024; papers of the month

Welcome back to the podcast! Three more papers covering topics that are relevant to all of our practice. The importance of removing wet clothes from patients is often discussed, both to prevent hypothermia and increase patient comfort. But how important...

End Tidal CO2; Roadside to Resus

End Tidal CO2, or ETCO2 for short, is something that’s talked about pretty often in Emergency and Critical Care and that’s because it’s used a lot in the assessment and treatment of patients! It’s got a big part to play...

March 2024; papers of the month

Welcome back to the podcast, a new month, three more papers and discussion around the topics. We kick off with a paper comparing mechanical ventilation in CPR compared to the more traditional hand ventilation; what difference does the machine make...

Refractory VF; Roadside to Resus

As we all know, rapid and effective resuscitation makes a huge difference to the chance of survival from a cardiac arrest. If you’re going to pick a rhythm to have as the patient or as the Resuscitationist, then it’s going...

February 2024; papers of the month

Welcome back to February's papers of the month. Syncope is a really common presentation to the Emergency Department and it can be complicated to tease out those with a concerning precipitant from the others with a more benign cause. The...

Paediatric Fever; Roadside to Resus

Fever is an incredibly effective mechanism to fight off pathogens. Clearly, whilst many illnesses that cause a fever don’t require anything more than the body’s natural response, there are some patients in which a fever might represent a serious illness....

January 2024; papers of the month

Happy New Year! We've got some great topic and in person events lined up for 2024 which we'll be able to share some more details about with you soon. This month we look at an RCT of conservative airway management...

Caring in a Broken System; Roadside to Resus

We know it's the festive season but we thought we’d try and cover an issue from which there appears to be no escape and is a particular problem at this time of year, queuing! Whether we like it or not,...

December 2023; papers of the month

We've talked about Aortic Dissection before in our Roadside to Resus episode and the huge difficulties in picking out these rare but potentially devastating cases and this month we've got a fantastic paper on the topic! The DAShED study looks at...

Blood gases; Roadside to Resus

Blood gases are really commonly used in ED, Critical Care, Respiratory Medicine and Prehospitally. In fact, you’d do well to walk 10 meters in an ED without being given one to sign off! But it’s for good reason, because they give...

November 2023; papers of the month

Well this has been a huge month for Emergency Medicine and Critical Care in terms of papers! We start off looking at REBOA; many resuscitationist's favourite concept or device with the much awaited UK-REBOA trial. What does the paper mean...

Spontaneous Pneumothorax; Roadside to Resus

In this episode we’re going to cover the ‘atraumatic’ or ‘spontaneous’ pneumothoraces and focus on some new key guidelines from the British Thoracic Society which came out in July this year and also look at the relevant evidence on the...

October 2023; papers of the month

Welcome back! This month we kick off looking at an RCT which looks at whether we should convey patients with a ROSC from a likely cardiac cause (without a STEMI in their ECG) to a cardiac arrest centre, or whether...

End of Life Care; Roadside to Resus

Delivering excellent End of Life Care in the Emergency Care is a real challenge but also a huge privilege and has formed some of the most rewarding parts of our careers to date. We've been really keen to End of...

ACPIC 2023; conference episode

Welcome back to the podcast, coming to you all the way from Australia! Rob and James were fortunate enough to be invited to deliver the keynote and an airway masterclass at this year's Australian College of Paramedicine International Conference. At...

September 2023; papers of the month

Welcome back to the podcast! We're back with three really interesting papers after our summer break, with some great points to think about with regards to our practice and patient outcomes. First up we take a look at the CT...

August 2023; papers of the month

Welcome back, this is our last podcast before our short summer break! We start off having a look at the physiological effects of prolonged resuscitation with a supraglottic device compared with endotracheal intubation, which raises some really interesting questions about...

Trauma Primary Survey; Roadside to Resus

So in this episode we’re going to run though the primary survey in trauma. This clinical assessment helps us identify and treat life threatening injuries and to rapidly intervene and correct them, so getting it right really matter1.  How this...

July 2023; papers of the month

There have been some huge trials released over the last month and we've got three brilliant papers to discuss! First up we take a look at an RCT on video versus direct laryngoscopy for patients requiring emergency intubation with the...

Traumatic Pneumothorax; Roadside to Resus

This is the first of two episodes looking at pneumothoraces. In this episode we're going to start out by taking a look at traumatic pneumothoraces. Traumatic pneumothoraces are present in about a fifth of multiple trauma patients, so it's not...

June 2023; papers of the month

Welcome back to the podcast and to the first episode in collaboration with our new sponsors Zoll, a huge thanks to them in their support of free open access medical education! First off this month we return to the topic...

Head Injury Updates; Roadside to Resus

The last time we took a good look at head injuries was back in 2018 in our Roadside to Resus episodes and for all of the foundational stuff on incidence, assessment, management and loads more  make sure you go and...

May 2023; papers of the month

This month we start off with a paper looking at the first pass success rate of intubation in cardiac arrest when performing continual CPR versus pausing. We then come on to two really interesting diagnostic papers and our prehospital accuracy...

Can't Intubate Can't Oxygenate; Roadside to Resus

Being in a situation of being unable to intubate and unable to oxygenate is an absolute time critical emergency.  Focus needs to be paid to the techniques and strategy to deal with this situation. But we also need to consider...

April 2023; papers of the month

Welcome back to the podcast! This month we start off thinking about sepsis, specifically fluid management and whether a restrictive approach to fluid resuscitation in combination with earlier vasopressors is advantageous over a liberal approach. Next we have a look...

Neck of Femur Fractures; Roadside to Resus

So NOF's aren't the most glamorous of topics to cover on a podcast, but the difference we can make to patients but refining our care is huge.  Neck of femur fractures have a high and increasing incidence. They occur predominantly...

March 2023; papers of the month

Welcome back to the podcast! ECMO-CPR is a growing conversation in the world of cardiac arrest management. This month we have a look at a paper which adds some great evidence to the overall picture; with an RCT on ECPR...

Crush; Roadside to Resus

So in this episode we’re going to be covering crush injury.  When you think about it, visions of falling rocks, industrial accidents and high speed RTCs may come to mind, but actually a crush injury can be sustained in a...

February 2023; papers of the month

Welcome back! Three more papers for you this month to inform and improve our care in acute and critical illness. First up and following on from the recent DoseVF paper, we take a look at a study looking at the...

COPD; Roadside to Resus

Welcome back to our first Roadside to Resus episode for 2023! We're back with the huge topic that is COPD. In this episode we're going to delve into the depths of the topic, helping us to deliver the best possible...

January 2023; papers of the month

Welcome to 2023 and a very happy New Year! We hope you managed to get some time with your loved ones over the festive period and we're back with the podcast again to kick off the new year. First up,...

Pacing; Roadside to Resus

So following on from our Bradycardia episode, we're going to look in detail at cardiac pacing. Setting up emergency pacing in those compromised bradycardia patients can make a significant difference to patient outcomes, and doing so in a timely and...

December 2022; papers of the month

Welcome back to 200th episode of the podcast! A huge thank to all of you for your support and engagement. Three more papers for you this month to challenge thinking across a board range of Emergency Care. First up we...

Acute Behavioural Disturbance; Roadside to Resus

Acute Behavioural Disturbance (ABD), one of the most challenging, dangerous and serious presentations that we will encounter in emergency management of patients. There is no widely accepted definition of ABD. Really it’s an umbrella term for a patient presenting with...

November 2022; papers of the month

Welcome back to the podcast and to November's Papers Of The Month. First up we're taking a look at a paper that challenges the current American Heart Association (AHA) and European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines that recommend when right ventricular...

Bradycardia; Roadside to Resus

We’ve covered tachycardias, both narrow and broad before, but we need to complete the set.  So this time we’ll be looking at the slower end of the spectrum, with bradycardias. Bradycardias can be a physiological state in athletes, but they...

October 2022; papers of the month

Welcome back to the podcast! First up this month we're going have a think about fluid therapy, following an RCT focussing on those patients attending ED with moderate severity acute pancreatitis; are we flooding them with fluid & should we...

Extrication; Roadside to Resus

Despite all the improvements that we have seen in trauma care over the past 20 or more years RTCs are still, sadly, a really common cause of both death and disability, with the number of deaths annually in the UK...

September 2022; papers of the month

Welcome back to the podcast! It's brilliant to be back after our summer break and we've got three great papers for you. First up we take a look at a paper looking at the association the a geriatric assessment can...

August 2022; papers of the month

Welcome back! This month we take a look at 3 papers covering the breadth of Emergency Care. First up we look at a paper evaluating outcomes for patients discharged on scene by an EMS service; how many reattend ED, how many...

Lactate; Roadside to Resus

So when people talk about patients having a high lactate we think about them being sick, it can at times be easy to slip into thinking that this equals sepsis or maybe ischaemia. And whilst the presence of a high...

July 2022; papers of the month

Intraosseous Access; Roadside to Resus

So, as we all know, there are loads of presentations that we see in Emergency Medicine that require us to gain rapid access to the circulation. Either to administer medicines around the body or to get fluids into the circulation....

June 2022; papers of the month

Welcome back to June '22 papers podcast! This month we start off with a look at rocuronium dosing in RSI; could a simple change of dosage lead to an increased first pass success for our intubations? Next up we take...

Leadership and Followership; Roadside to Resus

We talk a lot about the different skills involved in the management of the critically unwell patient; CPR, airway management, defibrillation, chest drains, RSI etc, etc…..but there is another aspect which is arguably as important and that is the non-technical...

May 2022; papers of the month

Welcome back to May's papers of the month! First up this month we'll be looking at an RCT focussed on prehospital intra-arrest management and comparing an early move in arrest towards ECMO-CPR and invasive treatment, versus remaining on scene continuing...

Acute Aortic Syndromes; Roadside to Resus

We have been wanting to do an episode on aortic dissections for quite a while now but you will see that what we’ve actually gone and done is created an episode on acute aortic syndromes…so we’ve done a great job...

April 2022; papers of the month

Welcome back to April ‘22 papers of the month podcast! We start off this month with a paper looking at the effect of a structured airway course on first pass success in novice and HEMS clinicians. Next up we take...

Debrief - Roadside to Resus

Debrief is an extremely important topic both in the prehospital and in-hospital environment. It offers the opportunity to clarify, reflect and improve on future practice. But partaking in and running a debrief can be challenging. So in this episode we'll...