TopMedTalk

At the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) meeting in Montreal, TopMedTalk hosts Desiree Chappell and Mike Grocott interview SOAP board member Dr. Dan Katz, an obstetric anesthesiologist at Mount Sinai, outgoing annual meeting chair and incoming vice president.

Katz reports record attendance—over 900 preregistrations and nearly 1,100 total—plus standing-room sessions and review of 600+ abstracts. He highlights opening with research presentations (magnesium and postpartum hemorrhage, gestational thrombocytopenia and hemorrhage, and potential immunotherapies tied to uterine atony), a translational theme on how guidelines evolve, public health/advocacy, and a maternal mortality panel.

Programming includes split research and clinical tracks, updates on postpartum hemorrhage, and an emerging focus on fetal surgery.

More here: http://soap.org

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/

At the 58th Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) meeting in Montreal, TopMedTalk guest host Desiree Chappell and co-editor-in-chief Mike Grocott interview Dr. Grace Lim, SOAP vice president/president-elect and new University of Utah department chair.

They discuss her priorities for her upcoming presidency, healthcare's shifting challenges, highlighting the Frederick W. Hehre Lecture_,_ from Valerie A. Arkoosh about a systems-focused career from obstetric anesthesiology to leading public health roles in Pennsylvania.

Lim emphasizes anesthesiologists as systems thinkers linking perioperative and perinatal care with population health and social determinants, and describes SOAP goals to improve representation, support community and rural sites lacking subspecialists, and ensure scalable, culturally sensitive care. She also cites sustainable funding and philanthropy efforts, including "Party With a Purpose." Lim outlines SOAP's ELEVATE Project on patient-centered cesarean anesthesia choices and notes maternal mental health as a key mortality driver. She summarizes a pilot study using Hemosphere monitoring during labor epidurals to detect hypotension trends and assess patient and nurse acceptability.

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/

At the 58th Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) meeting in Montreal, TopMedTalk guest host Desiree Chappell and co-editor-in-chief Mike Grocott interview Dr. Grace Lim, SOAP vice president/president-elect and new University of Utah department chair.

They discuss her priorities for her upcoming presidency, healthcare's shifting challenges, highlighting the Frederick W. Hehre Lecture_,_ from Valerie A. Arkoosh about a systems-focused career from obstetric anesthesiology to leading public health roles in Pennsylvania.

Lim emphasizes anesthesiologists as systems thinkers linking perioperative and perinatal care with population health and social determinants, and describes SOAP goals to improve representation, support community and rural sites lacking subspecialists, and ensure scalable, culturally sensitive care. She also cites sustainable funding and philanthropy efforts, including "Party With a Purpose." Lim outlines SOAP's ELEVATE Project on patient-centered cesarean anesthesia choices and notes maternal mental health as a key mortality driver. She summarizes a pilot study using Hemosphere monitoring during labor epidurals to detect hypotension trends and assess patient and nurse acceptability.

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/

Our coverage of The World Congress of Anesthesiologists (WCA) in Marrakesh continues.

Andy Cumpstey and Kate Leslie discuss high-risk surgical patients with anesthesiologists Debra Leung (The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne) and Duminda Wijeysundera (St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto). They explore how "high risk" extends beyond mortality (noting ~2% elective major surgery mortality in middle/high-income countries) to complications, medical morbidity, cognitive and functional decline, return to independence, and psychosocial factors such as social support. They describe a structured shared decision-making clinic: triage and preparation before visits, explaining surgery as an explicit choice, eliciting patient values and goals, and matching them to clinical information; she notes training needs and barriers, especially surgical engagement, overcome via surgical champions and formalizing "corridor conversations."They outline practical risk communication (natural frequencies, meaningful language, focusing on major events, ranking vs average, and what's modifiable) and highlights evidence that patients may refuse interventions sooner for functional/cognitive decline than for mortality risk. The conversation emphasizes linking risk prediction to actionable care pathways, prehabilitation/posthabilitation, and frameworks for both modifiable and non-modifiable risk amid aging, increasingly complex surgical populations.

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/

At the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and Faculty of Pain Medicine (FPM) held in Auckland, New Zealand, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey interview incoming ANZCA president Tanya Selak and incoming FPM Dean Michael Veltman about their goals in the next two years and the challenges ahead, and their appreciation of the hard work and commitment of fellows and trainees at the coalface.

Dr Tanya Selak is a consultant anaesthetist in Woolongong, Australia. Professor Michael Veltman is consultant pain medicine physician in Perth, Australia.

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/

At the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) meeting in Montreal, Desiree Chappell and Mike Grocott interview Meghan MacCleary, Obstetrician-Gynaecologist with Banner Health in Phoenix, about multidisciplinary collaboration to improve maternal outcomes.

Dr MacCleary describes her high-risk tertiary practice (about 4,000 deliveries/year; 25–26% C-sections) and decision-making for C-section based on safest delivery for mother or baby, amid rising maternal comorbidities, obesity, and older maternal age.

She highlights concerns during C-section including patient comfort, hypotension, nausea/vomiting, bleeding, and postpartum haemorrhage, noting U.S. maternal mortality concerns. The conversation advocates for continuous noninvasive blood pressure monitoring (finger cuff) to detect instability earlier, reporting reduced hemorrhage and ICU transfers in a 90-day quality project and discussing related advocacy at an Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) Capitol Hill briefing.

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/

New Presenter Amy Gomes and Andy Cumpstey interview this year's WFSA scholars. We speak with Drs Gabriela Queiroz Do Amaral, Emyedu Andrew, Jedniphat Intrapongpan, and Loreen Sharma.

The WFSA Scholarship Programme offers valuable opportunities for early-career anaesthesiologists from low- and middle-income countries to attend international and regional meetings. Find out more now about this exciting opportunity here: https://wfsahq.org/our-work/education-training/wfsa-scholarships/

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/

Perioperative Profiles, a popular monthly series on TopMedTalk in which we speak with the giants of perioperative medicine. This month Kate Leslie speaks with Denny Levett, Professor in Perioperative Medicine and Critical Care at the University of Southampton and a Consultant in Perioperative Medicine at Southampton University Hospital NHS Foundation trust (UHS).

She discusses her roles in Southampton in perioperative medicine and adult intensive care, and as director of the UK Centre for Perioperative Care (CPOC).

Denny recounts growing up in Rye, East Sussex, studying medicine at Cambridge, and how a transformative ICU post (just after the Soho pub bombing) led her into anaesthesia as a route to critical care.

Then, with mentorship from TopMedTalk's founder, Monty Mythen, co-led the Extreme Everest project, which informed her PhD and later work using cardiopulmonary exercise testing to predict surgical outcomes and develop prehabilitation; she also reflects on balancing a clinical-academic career with family life.

More on Xtreme Everest here:

https://topmedtalk.libsyn.com/xtreme-everest-extra-the-problem-with-hypoxia-the-inception-of-xtreme-everest

https://topmedtalk.libsyn.com/xtreme-everest-extra-the-significance-of-the-microcirculation

https://topmedtalk.libsyn.com/xtreme-everest-extra-unlocking-the-secrets-of-the-mighty-mitochondria

https://topmedtalk.libsyn.com/xtreme-everest-extra-hypoxia-and-the-brain

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/

At the 19th World Congress of the Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WCSA 2026) in Marrakesh, TopMedTalk welcomes Desiree Chappell back alongside Kate Leslie to interview Professor Palesa Motshabi-Chakane, Associate Professor and Head of Anaesthesiology at the University of the Witwatersrand and her colleague, Dr Mullai Slave a PhD candidate at University of the Witwatersrand.

They discuss a study of 629 women undergoing cesarean section with spinal anesthesia at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, where 23–33% are HIV positive.

Using standard monitoring plus BD APM noninvasive continuous hemodynamic monitoring, they compared HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients and found higher hypotension incidence in HIV-positive women (68% vs 64%), with lower heart rate and lower cardiac index over 60 minutes.

Additional testing included echocardiography with speckle tracking, pro-BNP, and autonomic assessments, with HIV-positive patients showing stiffer ventricles; Apgar scores did not differ. They discuss replication, multicenter research, and potential machine-learning tools to predict hypotension risk, and describe BD Advanced Patient Monitoring grant support enabling equipment, sensors, staffing, and training (~200 staff) to complete data collection in about six months.

Edwards Lifesciences is now known as Becton Dickinson Advanced Patient Monitoring (BD APM).

Desiree Chappell, former Co Editor in Chief of TopMedTalk, is now Director, Medical Science Liaison, Medical Affairs, BD Advanced Patient Monitoring. The views expressed on this program are her own and not those of her employers.

We mention Adrian Gelb, if you'd like to hear his recent conversation with us go here: https://topmedtalk.libsyn.com/professor-adrian-gelb-on-patient-safety-and-essential-medicines-in-anaesthesia

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/

Live from the 19th World Congress of Anaesthesiologists (WCA 2026) in Marrakesh with over 4,000 delegates from 150 countries, TopMedTalk's Kate Leslie and Mike Grocott interview Professor Adrian Gelb, past World Federation of the Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) president, about his career from South Africa to Canada and UCSF and his focus on lower-resource settings, patient safety, and WHO engagement.

Gelb argues patient safety improvements require system and workflow changes, not just guidelines. The comparison is drawn to road safety reforms and urging anesthesiologists to use their leverage in hospitals and governance. He reflects on the impact of Harvard monitoring standards and leadership that advanced safety, and calls for national societies to prioritize patient-centered advocacy and implementation support using human factors and knowledge translation expertise. He also describes work on WHO essential medicines lists and proposes a tiered, anesthesia-led WFSA essential medicines list by country income level via a global Delphi process, ending with a call for anesthesiologists to choose to lead again.

More about the congress here: https://wcacongress.org/

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Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood.

Register here -

https://ebpom.org/product/ebpom-world-congress-2026/