Pediatric Prehospital Advanced Airway Management by Anesthesiologist and Nurse Anesthetist Staffed Critical Care Teams.

Introduction: Prehospital pediatric tracheal intubation (TI) is a possible life-saving intervention that requires adequate experience to mitigate associated complications. The pediatric airway and respiratory physiology present challenges in addition to a relatively rare incidence of prehospital pediatric TI.

Study Objective: The aim of this study was to describe characteristics and outcomes of prehospital TI in pediatric patients treated by critical care teams.

Pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia in trauma patients treated by anaesthesiologist and nurse anaesthetist staffed critical care teams.

Background: Pre-hospital tracheal intubation in trauma patients has recently been questioned. However, not only the trauma and patient characteristics but also airway provider competence differ between systems making simplified statements difficult.

Method: The study is a subgroup analysis of trauma patients included in the PHAST study.

Checklists in pre-hospital advanced airway management.

Background: In pre-hospital care, pre-intubation checklists (PICL) are widely implemented as a safety measure and guidelines support their use. However, the true value of PICL among experienced airway providers is unknown. This study aims to explore possible benefits and disadvantages of PICL in the pre-hospital setting.

A Protocol for Helicopter In-Cabin Intubation.

Objective: The gold standard for prehospital intubation is to avoid intubating in confined spaces. For our helicopter service, this is not always realistic. Operating in a rural region with a subarctic, cold climate, our crews are frequently forced to intubate inside ambulances or in our helicopter.

The mission characteristics of a newly implemented rural helicopter emergency medical service.

Background: Physician-staffed helicopter emergency services (HEMS) can provide benefit through the delivery of specialist competence and equipment to the prehospital scene and through expedient transport of critically ill patients to specialist care. This paper describes the integration of such a system in a rural Swedish county.

Methods: This is a retrospective database study recording the outcomes of every emergency call centre dispatch request as well as the clinical and operational data from all completed missions during this service's first year in operation.

The Norwegian guidelines for the prehospital management of adult trauma patients with potential spinal injury.

The traditional prehospital management of trauma victims with potential spinal injury has become increasingly questioned as authors and clinicians have raised concerns about over-triage and harm. In order to address these concerns, the Norwegian National Competence Service for Traumatology commissioned a faculty to provide a national guideline for pre-hospital spinal stabilisation. This work is based on a systematic review of available literature and a standardised consensus process.

Body Positioning of Buried Avalanche Victims.

Objective: The immediate medical management of buried avalanche victims will to some extent be dictated by the victim's body positioning in the snow. Medical personnel are trained to assess and manage victims in a supine body position. Furthermore, avalanche first responders are trained to handle extricated avalanche victims carefully out of concerns for causing hemodynamic instability or for aggravating spinal injury.

The prehospital management of avalanche victims.

Avalanche accidents are frequently lethal events with an overall mortality of 23%. Mortality increases dramatically to 50% in instances of complete burial. With modern day dense networks of ambulance services and rescue helicopters, health workers often become involved during the early stages of avalanche rescue.

Resuscitative thoracotomies and open chest cardiac compressions in non-traumatic cardiac arrest.

Since the popularisation of closed chest cardiac compressions in the 1960s, open chest compressions in non-traumatic cardiac arrest have become a largely forgotten art. Today, open chest compressions are only rarely performed outside operating theatres. Early defibrillation and high quality closed chest compressions is the dominating gold standard for the layman on the street as well as for the resuscitation specialist.

Failure of ketamine anesthesia in a patient with lamotrigine overdose.

Introduction. It is important to know which clinical situations prevent ketamine from working. Case Report.