Debriefing After Critical Events Combines Review, Reflection

The PICU bereavement/wellness committee at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago developed a tailored debriefing process to allow time for reflection and communication after critical patient events. The process was designed as a hot debriefing to be completed during the current shift, with all staff members who were involved in the event invited to participate.

FAU Approved for Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine Fellowship

FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine has received initial accreditation from the national Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for its fifth university-sponsored fellowship. The FAU Pulmonary Medicine and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship will be based at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, part of Baptist Health – the primary site for the program – as well as Bethesda Hospital, also part of Baptist Health, and the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center. All are members of the FAU College of Medicine Graduate Medical Education (GME) Consortium.

Critical Care Medicine Organizations Urge House Leadership to Stop Medicare Payment Cuts

Today, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists (SOCCA), and Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) sent a formal communication to Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Charles Schumer, and House Minority leaders Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, strongly urging them to take immediate action to stop pending Medicare physician payment cuts.

ATS Research Program Awards Unrestricted Grants for 2021-22

The American Thoracic Society Research Program today announced the five recipients of Unrestricted Grants for the 2021-2022 grant cycle. These grants support research in critical care pulmonary and sleep medicine, the three pillars of the Society. Each recipient is awarded $40,000 because they rose to the challenge regarding providing novel approaches to how some lung diseases are managed, as well as fostering health care quality and improving patient outcomes.

Renowned Pulmonary Disease Specialist to Lead UCSF Pulmonology Program

Prescott Woodruff, MD, MPH, a renowned leader in the pathogenesis and treatment of airway disease, has been appointed chief of UC San Francisco’s Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy and Sleep Medicine. Prescott will assume the role of chief on July 1.

Roadmap Will Enable Health Professional Societies to Address Critical Care Clinician Burnout

A new paper published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society provides a roadmap that critical care clinicians’ professional societies can use to address burnout. While strongly needed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the roadmap has taken on even greater urgency due to reports of increasing pandemic-related burnout.

UTHealth joins study of blood pressure medication’s effect on improving COVID-19 outcomes

An interventional therapy aimed at improving survival chances and reducing the need for critical care treatment due to COVID-19 is being investigated by physicians at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The clinical trial is underway at Memorial Hermann and Harris Health System’s Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital.

ECMO Physicians Offer Guidance in the Context of Resource-scarce COVID-19 Treatment

Rapidly escalating numbers of COVID-19 patients suffering from respiratory failure threaten to overwhelm hospital capacity and force healthcare providers into making challenging decisions about the care they provide. Of particular interest is the role of ECMO – extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, a form of life support for patients with advanced lung disease – to support critically ill patients in the current pandemic.

ASA Urges Administration to Take Steps to Ensure Continued Patient Care, Provider Safety During COVID-19

As the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) continues to collaborate with the Administration, Congress and other officials on ways physician anesthesiologists can help treat patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, ASA President Mary Dale Peterson, M.D., MSHCA, FACHE, FASA, sent a communication to the White House commending the Administration for its work to date and formalizing key ASA recommendations to address top health concerns. In the communication, Dr. Peterson urges the Administration to continue to prioritize actions to expand access to personal protective equipment (PPE), to provide robust economic relief to physician anesthesiologists’ practices and to increase access to ventilators which include anesthesia gas machine ventilators, while considering expanding access to critical care providers.

Firearm Violence Solutions from a Public Health Perspective

While firearm violence is a major public health challenge in the United States, it has often been considered a law enforcement issue with only law enforcement solutions. An article by two University of Pennsylvania researchers advises that treating firearm violence as a disease and taking a public health approach to prevention and treatment can help reduce its harms.

New Guidelines for Hepatic Failure in the Intensive Care Unit

For critical care specialists, hepatic failure poses complex challenges unlike those of other critical illnesses. A new set of evidence-based recommendations for management of liver failure is presented in the March issue of Critical Care Medicine, the official journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. The guidelines are being presented at the SCCM 49th Critical Care Congress.

Shorter Rotations in Intensive Care Units Mitigate Burnout Among Physicians

Penn Medicine pilot finds increased job fulfillment, decreased burnout for critical care physicians working seven- versus 14-day rotations PHILADELPHIA – Shortening the length of rotations in a medical intensive care unit (MICU) from the traditional 14-consecutive day schedule to only…