Sara Robinson
I love Emergency Medicine, possibly not the most appropriate start to a FICM blog, but it is true. I love the variety, the pace, but most of all I love the people, be they patients or staff, and the teamwork.
Lucy Hogg
“I could take a look at that!” were the fateful words I uttered which led me and my colleagues on a journey of discovery into ICU follow-up and ultimately in us establishing a new service in our hospital.
Catriona Felderhof
Who I am: Catriona / Cat / Treen Felderhof, final year dual registrar in Anaesthesia and ICM in the West of Scotland and Deputy Trainee Representative for FICM, mother to three very active boys.
Who I am not: Superwoman (I have the mountain of washing and chaotic house to prove it) and nor should I need to be…
Gillian Fleming
Giving effective feedback is a core skill for medical professionals and the ability to do it well is a hallmark of a good teacher and colleague.
Duncan Philp
Many patients in the ITU are unable to look after their own eyes so it is vitally important that we take care of them on their behalf. They are at higher risk of eye damage both as a result of their acute illness and due to the treatment they receive on ITU.
Alex Scott
As I was saying at the odd conference before we were so all so rudely interrupted, Point of Care Ultrasound is finally coming of age in the UK. It has taken a while – the first diagnostic use of ultrasound was in the 1940s by a neurologist, a comparatively rapid pickup from the first demonstrations of Non-Destructive Testing for metals using ultrasound in 1928.
Liz Thomas
Shashikumar Chandrashekaraiah
A recruitment blog double from Dr Liz Thomas and Dr Shashikumar Chandrashekaraiah.
Liz discusses getting a job in a time of change and Shashikumar tells us about recruitment as an IMG.
John Wilkinson, Janet Wilkinson, Sarah Redford, Matthew Faulds
Following on from Gilly Fleming’s blog in November where she gave a fantastic update on some of the ways teaching can adapt to the challenges of the pandemic, we wanted to share with you our experience of developing a new learning tool and applying it in such an unusual time.
Emma Taylor
I originally chose to study pharmacy after being inspired by some family-friends who owned their own community pharmacy. I studied at Nottingham University, and only changed my mindset towards hospital pharmacy at the very end of my degree and managed to secure my Pre-Registration Pharmacist year in my local district general hospital. My training was excellent, I loved the clinical aspects of the job, and I was encouraged by the team to progress my career in hospital pharmacy.
Gilly Fleming
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global healthcare emergency and the NHS is facing an unprecedented crisis. During the first wave in March and April 2020, the immediate priority was understandably on clinical delivery of safe and efficient care for patients presenting with a novel disease process. This led to the suspension of many “non essential, non-covid” services, and included widespread disruption to medical education at all levels, from undergraduate to postgraduate.
Colin McAdam
You must be mad! The usual response from single CCT colleagues in a now increasing frequency – more exams, more portfolios, longer training, increased cost – all to start on the same pay scale.
Claire Williment
Max and Keira’s Law came in to force on the 20th May 2020 and brought renewed hope to the thousands of people on the UK transplant waiting list. The legislation introduced ‘opt out’ as the legal basis for organ donation consent in England and is expected to lead to an additional 700 transplants a year. However, the path to getting the new legislation in place was far from smooth.
Colin McAdam
This blog aims to present a brief update on the management of stroke and subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH), with particular reference to critical care.
Som Sarkar
We were approaching the end of April. We had just come through a CQC inspection, COVID was in full swing on our 13 bedded unit, running 3 times our capacity having spilled out into our main theatres, anaesthetic rooms and recovery.
Victoria Robson
FFICM Exam Chair
FFICM is a ‘high stakes’ exam taken by ICM trainees, and is mandatory before entry it stage 3 training. This article aims to give some tips and pointers to trainees who are preparing for this exam, written by an experienced FFICM examiner.
Matt Bromley
Post graduate exams are hard. They have a huge impact on the candidate’s life. It can be difficult to put the rest of your life on hold for 3 months to focus on revision, but this is unfortunately necessary. The revision should become intolerable after a few months or you are not revising hard enough.
Pete Hersey
Nine things you didn’t know you wanted to know about Vancomycin….
Shashi Chandrashekaraiah, Sushruth Raghunath, Avinash Jha, Arif Akbar, Ikenga Samuel & Mohammed Elshamy
International Medical Graduates (IMGs) account for approximately 25% of the current UK trainee doctor workforce and are predominantly of black Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. There has been a lot of discussion during the current COVID-19 crisis about IMGs and their contribution to the NHS, VISA/Immigration health surcharge and the more important topic of increased mortality among BAME doctors from COVID-19.
Matt Morgan
As I look through my office window at yellowing patches of summer grass, it may seem strange to talk about Christmas. But these are strange times. I remember being told that there are three stages of life – first you believe in Santa, then you don’t believe in Santa, then you are Santa.
Ella Terblanche, Anand Krishna, Rosie Baruah
COVID-19 has presented challenges unlike anything we have faced before. In this blog, colleagues share their experiences by describing five things they wish they had known.
Ollie Cohen, Hannah Grafton-Waters, Greg Barton
COVID-19 has presented challenges unlike anything we have faced before. In this blog, colleagues share their experiences by describing five things they wish they had known.
Tony Rostron
For those of us who contribute to patient facing research, there were signals in early March that our working lives were about to change. The safety implications related to recruitment of and sampling from patients in studies who were potentially infected with SARS-CoV-2 needed to be considered. As a result many NIHR portfolio studies, supported by their funders, decided to pause recruitment.
Zoe Brummel, Andy Breen, Peter Shirley
COVID-19 has presented challenges unlike anything we have faced before. In this blog, colleagues share their experiences by describing five things they wish they had known.
Jack Parry Jones, Nicki Credland, Guy Parsons
COVID-19 has presented challenges unlike anything we have faced before. In this blog, colleagues share their experiences by describing five things they wish they had known.
Helen Singh, Joel Meyer, Richard Benson
COVID-19 has presented challenges unlike anything we have faced before. In this blog, colleagues share their experiences by describing five things they wish they had known.
Sarah Clarke
One of the difficult jobs during this pandemic is not only our dedication and commitment to best care of our patients, but the supervision and support of those less familiar to the Critical Care environment. This may be our own trainees, but also others for whom the decision to come to our ‘space’ hasn’t necessarily been their own; and includes other specialty trainees, senior medical staff, nursing colleagues and allied health professionals.
Andrew Jacques
The following is a guide to help you set up an in-situ simulation (ISS) program in the intensive care unit. It is not an exhaustive guide but drawn from my experience of establishing a program on our unit and some of the problems and solutions along the way.
Catherine White
What may be the end of the story for critical care healthcare professionals is usually the beginning of a long, difficult and sometimes very lonely journey for patients and their relatives.
Kate Rimmer
Consent is the voluntary permission of a patient to be given a treatment. Consent must be obtained wherever possible before all treatments and procedures, reflecting the importance of individual patient autonomy in healthcare.
Kate Rimmer
The issue of mental capacity in the critical care environment can be fraught with difficulty and can cause anxiety to staff working in these environments. It is important for all staff involved in the care of the critically ill to understand the law in relation to capacity and consent and have knowledge of the process of making a capacity assessment.
Brian Pouchet
Since the invention of blogs in 1994, blogging has exponentially expanded into every sphere. There are millions of blogs on the web representing a spectrum of interests, ideas, ideologies and information sharing.
