Category Archives: Fascinomata

Occasional non-medical science stuff to make you go ‘Wow!’

Resuscitationist lessons from a self-protection master

It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it

My great friend and fellow Brit Lee Morrison is in Sydney again, teaching people how to save lives. Like a resuscitationist. But Lee isn’t a health care worker. He is a professional self protection instructor and martial athlete. The lives he is teaching people to save are their own and those of their friends and families. Lee has travelled the world and taught a diverse range of professionals including law enforcement and military special forces personnel. His current world tour will include the Czech Republic, USA, France, Russia and Germany after Australia.
What does this have to do with resuscitation? In my experience, almost everything. Hitting someone in self defence is technically very easy. Doing a resuscitative hysterotomy is technically very easy. Being able to do either of those things under stress can be difficult or impossible for some people.
Those who strive to understand and cultivate the Mind of the Resuscitationist know the importance of preparation through simulation under stress; the need to acknowledge and control the physiological and emotional response to stress; the necessity to train outside ones comfort zone and minimise the gap between simulated and real situations by optimising the cognitive fidelity of training scenarios; and the requirement to access the right mental state in an instant in which failure is not considered to be an option.
People who do not wish to witness the discussion or demonstration of violence or who cannot stand swearing should stop now. Those of you who want to see mastery in action watch the video below of Lee teaching in Germany.

I want you to appreciate the following:

  • Presentation style – how to connect with an audience and fully engage them through humour, passion, emphasis, intelligent discourse, and detailed explanations that connect emotionally and physically as well as intellectually.
  • The loss of fine motor skill under stress (2 min 13 sec)
  • The mindset of determination (2 min 48 sec) – consider how this relates to the perspective of the resuscitationist prepared to do a resuscitative thoracotomy under stress
  • How to influence and win arguments in a conflict situation by being assertive but providing a face-saving get-out for the aggressor. I have applied this multiple times in the resus room and in retrieval situations. (4 min 11 sec)
  • Training honestly – maintaining safety but ‘doing it like you f—-ing mean it’. Get out of your comfort zone and make the discomfort as real as possible. (7 min 37 sec)
  • How to minimise the gap between your training and what you’re training for, when legal, moral, and safety restrictions prevent you from doing the actual task for real as a training exercise. Using fatigue, pain, and disorientation as perturbations so you learn to recognise and mitigate their effects. (9 min 19 sec)
  • Accessing a single mental state that provides focus and prevents distraction from discomfort (11 min 40 sec)

If the video made you feel uncomfortable ask yourself why. If it’s because you consider yourself to be above violence and find the subject matter, language, and humour to be distasteful, that’s your right to feel like that. But try to dig a little deeper and ask yourself whether there are potential situations in your life that could confront you with fear or pain that you could be better prepared for if you trained with a different mindset.
When the situation arises that demands life-saving action and you are tired, hungry, scared, and discouraged by opposing advice or opinion, do you have the self-knowledge and resilience to see it through? If you don’t know the answer to that, isn’t it time you found out?
You can find out more about Lee at Urban Combatives

Hexagonal storm on Saturn's North Pole

Our solar system is amazing and beautiful and the wondrous discoveries continue. Watch this video from the NY Times on Saturn’s northern storm, shaped like a hexagon and larger than Earth:

This line from the video is inspiring:
Rings of ice, in a dancing ribbon of Aurora, sitting smack on top of a six-sided hurricaine. Another jewel in the crown of the solar system’s most photogenic planet.

 

Even the dead exhale CO2

cadaverETCO2iconCardiac arrest patients sometimes have unrecognised oesophageal intubations because clinicians omit capnography, based on the assumption that circulatory arrest leads to an absence of exhaled CO2. This is wrong, and reassuringly the latest ILCOR cardiac arrest guidelines recommend waveform capnography during resuscitation.
Of interest is the fact that even corpses have CO2 in their lungs. While not clinically relevant, this may have value when fresh frozen cadavers are used for airway training, since we might be able to supplement the realism of airway instrumentation with the realism of connecting the capnography adaptor and circuit and seeing confirmation on the monitor.
This preliminary study, completed by my Sydney HEMS colleagues, needs further work, but it’s an interesting area.
Sustained life-like waveform capnography after human cadaveric tracheal intubation
Emerg Med J doi:10.1136/emermed-2013-203105
[EXPAND Abstract]


Introduction Fresh frozen cadavers are effective training models for airway management. We hypothesised that residual carbon dioxide (CO2) in cadaveric lung would be detectable using standard clinical monitoring systems, facilitating detection of tracheal tube placement and further enhancing the fidelity of clinical simulation using a cadaveric model.

Methods The tracheas of two fresh frozen unembalmed cadavers were intubated via direct laryngoscopy. Each tracheal tube was connected to a self-inflating bag and a sidestream CO2 detector. The capnograph display was observed and recorded in high-definition video. The cadavers were hand-ventilated with room air until the capnometer reached zero or the waveform approached baseline.

Results A clear capnographic waveform was produced in both cadavers on the first postintubation expiration, simulating the appearances found in the clinical setting. In cadaver one, a consistent capnographic waveform was produced lasting over 100 s. Maximal end-tidal CO2 was 8.5 kPa (65 mm Hg). In cadaver two, a consistent capnographic waveform was produced lasting over 50 s. Maximal end-tidal CO2 was 5.9 kPa (45 mm Hg).

Conclusions We believe this to be the first work to describe and quantify detectable end-tidal capnography in human cadavers. We have demonstrated that tracheal intubation of fresh frozen cadavers can be confirmed by life-like waveform capnography. This requires further validation in a larger sample size.

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Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher

I am stunned by the beauty and brilliance of this video by Spanish filmmaker Cristóbal VilaInspirations: A Short Film Celebrating the Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher.
M.C. Escher (1898-1972) was the Dutch artist who explored a wide range of mathematical ideas with his woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.
The cool bloggers at openculture.com write: Although Escher had no formal training in mathematics beyond secondary school, many mathematicians counted themselves as admirers of his work.

 
INSPIRATIONS from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.
 
 
 
If you want to well up further with rapturous contemplation of the beauty of mathematics in nature, check out his other video, Nature by Numbers

Nature by Numbers from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.