Should you use an introducer (bougie/stylet)?

While many of us would think this is a daft question, when we went hunting for high-quality evidence, it was not very forthcoming.  Hence:  science to the rescue!  Watch a brief (<120 second) overview of the study:

Kirsten Kingma and Ross Hofmeyr give a #litbit overview of their paper published open-access in Emergency Medicine Australasia comparing intubation with different introducers in a simulated easy and difficult airway.

What’s the bottom line?  We should always be using and introducer (bougie or stylet) when approaching a predicted difficult airway, and possibly for any emergency or rapid-sequence intubation… at least in manikins!  What’s needed next?  A robust RCT…

Capnography resources

Quick head’s up:  If you don’t know it already, capnography is one of the most powerful tools in airway management.  In the process of collating some pre-learning material for a workshop, I realised that I was gathering quite a few nice resources on capnography.  To save you the time, I’ve linked them together on a new Capnography page here on OpenAirway.  There are online tutorials, an interactive quiz, reference waveforms, and dynamic videos to be found. Please feel free to suggest further resources in the links!

AirwayHowTo: Clean a CMAC VL

If you work in an environment without constant access to staff to clean and process your video laryngoscopes, you need to know how to do it yourself. This quick video demonstrates pragmatic cleaning of the C-MAC VL (original and latest version) for low-risk patients. Where there is high infection risk, heavy soiling or blood on the blades, high level disinfection may be indicated.

Site updates: Courses & Lectures

Some updates to the site to improve your access and experience!  The various courses which are on offer in conjunction with the UCT Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine have been added to a new ‘Courses & Lectures‘ page here on OpenAirway, which also now includes links to the content and resources available from many of our previous workshops, courses and congress meetings, as well as a collection of the lectures that are available online.  These are being added to steadily, but if you can’t find something, use the search function on the tool bar!  The menu has also been update to make the various items easier to find.

Open access meducation for all aspects of airway management