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.
