The CICM Annual Scientific Meeting is on in Melbourne next week. Those of you who are going have a good program to look forward to, especially if you are going to take in one or more of the ICU Update Course, the New Fellows Conference or Sedation and Delerium in the ICU conference. The social side of things should be good too. (M-Diddy has been known to enjoy his nights out and there are rumours he'll be dropping in on the various after-parties.)

If you can't get there, enter the Twitterverse and follow @I_C_N. Both ICN authors Oli Flower (@OliFlower) and Matthew Mac Partlin (@rollcagemedic) will be at the ASM ready to let you know about the latest and greatest.

You're leading the ICU round on your first day after handover. Your resident introduces the next patient ...

"a 63yo gentleman who's had an out of hospital cardiac arrest yesterday. The first rythmn was VF and the the ambos shocked him 3 times, performed CPR and gave him some adrenalin. He was down for 20 minutes, with no bystander CPR for about the first 3 minutes. He came here and got cooled and he's just being warmed up now."

Your registrar mutters to the nurse:

"This guy's not going to do well. Watch for myoclonic activity and we'll check his pupils and motor response tomorrow."

Is your registrar correct? How and when will you prognosticate?

SIN meetings are normally held every second month, but Tim Southwood is on a roll after the success of the St Vincent's meeting, where a record on-site and online attendance heard Dr. Priya Nair discuss lung transplantation issues.

Tim has hooked a big fish and arranged for Prof John Myburg to give a presentation on the 14th of June on fluid therapies. This was a hot topic at the recent 32nd ISICEM Brussels Critical Care Meeting (Just look at the program for day one here).

Potential venues have been narrowed down to 3 and they are hard to chose between - think sand, surf, sunset and sumptious menus.

We'll let you know when the final details are out for this meeting.

Biggest SIN meeting ever at St Vincent's Hospital

Last night, 50 critical care folk turned up to St Vincent's hospital in Darlinghurst, Sydney to hear this excellent talk by Priya Nair on the management of lung transplant recipients in ICU. 20 more joined by web conference.

If you didn't make it, the talk is available here or on iTunes here.

The slides are here (I'd recommend downloading rather than watching directly on google docs).

Some photos from the night are on our facebook page here - let us know if you like them/want them removed!

Details about the Bedside Critical Care conference are here

A bunch of clever people at Tufts Medical Centre in Boston, MA, have attempted to influence the outcome of patients calling their community Emergency Medical Service (Ambulance service) for apparent Acute Coronary Syndrome by applying physiological principles and some pre-existing suggestive evidence. They called it the IMMEDIATE Trial and it was published online by JAMA in the end of March. It offers some interesting possibilities.

Read more here. 

Keeping up-to-date with the literature

Do you ever feel like its a struggle to keep up to date with the literature?

There are many ways to do this, which vary in their degrees of effort and required IT skills.

What is it?

A bi-monthly current awareness journal for the busy intensive care clinician

What does it contain?

Every issue has

• specially written extended abstracts in plain English
• expert comment to every abstract from a member of our eminent international Editorial Board
• a ‘bottom line’ to each comment to sum up the importance of each paper
• papers graded by evidence level
• a series of symbols to denote papers of special interest
• an Editorial written by an Editorial Board member
• recommended reading lists of important review papers
• self-assessment questions

How much does it cost?

The ICN continues to bring intensivists and intensive care trainees together, regardless of geography, so that no one feels they are out on their own. We've had great interest from all over the world with a wide range of membership, from intern to specialist and includes ICU, ED and Anaesthetics. If you want to talk to someone about ICU practice in another country or you are looking for a study buddy to tackle the Fellowship exam with, there's probably someone who can help on this site.

Or maybe you've created a fantastic ECG tutor, or a set of instructional photos on how to insert an IABP for novices. If you have been toying with an ICU educational idea but haven't gotten around to working on it, or you have something ready to go and think it would make a great online resource and just need a platform to place it, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it because we might be able to help you out.

Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to hear Dr Priya Nair talk about the intricacies of managing patients who require lung transplants.

As usual, food drink & merriment will be provided by our kind sponsors, so save the date (03.05.12) and tell your friends. Please RSVP to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by 27.04.12.

Here is where St Vincent's Hospital is

An Introduction to Cardiothoracic ICU

In this 30 minute interview with Heather Low, an intensivist with an interest in CT ICU, we cover a few topics of interest to those who are new to, or want to know more about cardiothoracic intensive care. We discuss what to look out for at the hand over, high risk patients, complications of cardiopulmonary bypass, the hypotensive patient, the patient with a low cardiac index, arrhythmias and intra-aortic balloon pumps.

The one place we still use swans...

Login and click here to listen

The Brisbane Intensive Care Network presents

"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable"

(The Wizard of Oz) 

Professor John Fraser

24/4/12

7pm

The London Club

Teneriffe

RSVP to

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

(with any special dietary requirements)

by 18/4/12