Acute Kidney Injury is common, complicated and holds significant morbidity and mortality. But...if we recognise it, we can make a real difference to our patients' outcomes.

In this episode we run through the anatomy, physiology and aetiologies.

We have a think about the multitude of definitions of AKI and then take each of the pre renal, renal and post renal categories and think about the ways we can optimise our care in each.

We also have a think about who needs to be admitted and who can be safely managed in the community.

This was a hugely valuable episode for us all to research and bring clarity to a complicated topic, we hope it does the same for you too!

Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom!

Simon, Rob & James

There's a huge paper to talk about this month in the PREOXI trial, a multi centre RCT looking at the pre oxygenation strategy in critically unwell patients undergoing RSI, with patients either getting high flow oxygen through a facemask or NIV. The results are pretty remarkable and may well be practice changing as we'll discuss in the podcast!

Next up we take a look at a feasibility of lidocaine patches for older patients with rib fractures and the potential benefit in terms of pain and respiratory complications.

Lastly we take a look at the benefit of performing a CT head scan in the Emergency Department for patients with a first fit. At times this can feel like a significant utilisation of resources, but what is the yield of positive scans and impact on patient care?

Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom!

Simon & Rob

So this month we’re looking at major incidents and specifically the triage process that is now coming into play in the UK and further afield that you need to know about!

We normally stick pretty strongly to clinical topics; they’re pretty easy to focus on because you can imagine how extra knowledge in a certain clinical area could make a difference to presentations that we see pretty commonly. And being brutally honest, making the effort to prepare and rehearse what we might do, on the off chance that we ever come across a major incident, can be difficult to motivate yourself to do.

But this is probably an area that investing a bit of time in, really thinking about how you would act in a major incident, could make a phenomenal difference to what may be one of the most, if not the most challenging clinical days of your career.

In the episode we run through Ten Second Triage (TST) and the Major Incident Triage Tool (MITT). They replace the previous triage methodologies and are to be implemented by the end of this month. We also cover some other aspects of planning and approach for being the first responder at a major incident, and we were lucky enough to gain some insights to the new triage process from Phil Cowburn, an EM & PHEM consultant who was involved in their development.

Once again we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback either on the website or via X @TheResusRoom!

Simon, Rob & James