I’ll be taking my critical care medicine (CCM) board exam on October 13, 2018 just over three months into my cardiothoracic anesthesiology fellowship. The American Board of Anesthesiology posts a content outline for the CCM exam, so I’m rewriting the outline in a Google Document and basically filling in the…
I’ve finished over three months of my critical care fellowship, and my has the time flown by! I’ve completed items 1 – 7 on my list of rotations and will be starting a two week elective in TEE/imaging tomorrow. It’ll be a nice preview of what I’ll be doing next…
Compared to how I studied for anesthesiology, the topics I’ll cover in critical care will be far different and more in depth. Yes, both fields have overlap in terms of knowledge base (hemodynamic management, mechanical ventilation, pathophysiology, pharmacology, overall acute care topics) and procedural skills (airway management, line placement, etc);…
Prevention of hypoxemia requires a protected, unobstructed airway and adequate ventilation which takes priority over managing all other conditions.
As of yesterday, I’m officially certified in Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) for the next four years! This two day course was required and paid for by my critical care fellowship, so I wanted to summarize some of the pearls I learned.
Procalcitonin (PCT) is a 116 amino acid peptide precursor to calcitonin, a hormone involved in calcium homeostasis. PCT increases significantly in the context of proinflammatory bacterial infections but remains low in viral and other inflammatory states. In serum, PCT rises in 2-4 hours and peaks at 4-30 hours, but interestingly…
The subcostal view on transthoracic echocardiography can be used to examine the inferior vena cava (IVC), a large valveless vein that returns blood from the lower body to the right atrium (RA).
Our thoracic ICU rotation is perhaps the most difficult rotation we have as anesthesia critical care fellows. For two weeks, we’re q2 call (meaning on call every other day). The patients are super sick, but the pathologies are incredibly fascinating.
My fellowship is divided into two week blocks throughout the year. We rotate alongside fellows/residents from other departments and almost always in a multidisciplinary setting consisting of nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, nutritionists, physical/occupational therapists, etc. I started my fellowship about a week later, so I could move from Houston. Here…
As a critical care fellow, I’ll spend a total of two months (four, 2-week rotations) in the cardiac intensive care unit (ICU). I just finished my first rotation there and got to befriend many of the cardiac surgery attendings and fellows who I’ll be working alongside in the operating room…