Awake Intubation from Minh on Life in the Fast Lane

This month on ‘Own the Airway Audio’ Minh speaks to Dr Seth Trueger (@MDaware), a chief resident (i.e. senior registrar equivalent) who works with EMCrit‘s Scott Weingart in New York. Seth’s training has taken him down a resuscitation sub-specialty track, with a focus on the airway. He has a special interest in awake intubation in the ED.

Go to Life in the Fast Lane to see the Post

PHARM Podcast 002 – Seeing the Light

Key points of the podcast

  1. In the prehospital setting, personal equipment should be light, portable, small, cheap , easily replaceable and serve multiple functions
  2. A portable light source is essential, day or night, as a clinical examination tool and portable illumination
  3. My shopping list for a prehospital light source include : minimum 200 lumens intensity, LED, standard battery power(AA or CR123), hand carried or mountable with a clip, converts to head mounted illumination
  4. Hands free lighting is the way to go. Examine and do procedures like chest drain insertion or finger thoracostomies in low light conditions where your line of sight is illuminated!
  5. Transillumination or pan illumination using LED high intensity light source to find superficial non palpable veins. Traditionally used in paediatrics to find veins, this technique can be used in all age groups. Refer to accompanying demonstration video. Transillumination is technique of illuminating through the full thickness of a body part like a hand or foot. Pan illumination is the technique of localised soft tissue illumination allowing vessels to be shadow outlined locally. Yes with IO access in prehospital medicine, this is not so useful but still handy to know in case no IO or USS available. Useful areas to look for superficial veins with this technique are lateral infraclavicular area, medial lower humeral area, volar forearm, lateral neck, medial ankle and dorsum foot.

Accompanying images

  1. Closeup image of LED Torch privately purchased from www.zebralight.com
  2. Image of camping head torch, baseball type peaked cap with clip mounted LED torch, LED torch. This is my prehospital personal light set
  3. Closeup image of LED Torch with reversed mounting clip attached to cap peak

Acknowledgements : Dr Thien Le Cong,my brother, who taught me the above techniques and suggested the LED high intensity light source

Conflicts of interest : None. All devices were privately purchased and no sponsorship is provided or sought

Now on to the Podcast

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PHARM Podcast 001 – Minh Interviews Cliff Reid

This is not an EMCrit Podcast, this is the first episode of a possible new podcast from EMCrit frequent poster Minh Le Cong.

You know Minh from posts like:

Needle vs. Knife

the king vision review

How to do a needle cric

He interviews Cliff Reid on Prehospital Airway Management and they discuss this paper:

Critical Care 2012, 16:R24

Now on to the Podcast

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