Tag Archives: Conferences

Das SMACC in Berlin

street-art-1499524_1280
Berlin graffiti art depicting Oli Flower (left) and Roger Harris (right) on stage at the close of the last SMACC conference

 

Don’t miss your chance to register for the best emergency/prehospital/critical care conference out there

Tickets will be released on the following dates:das-smacc-tix-schedule-oct

Here are a few ‘rules of the game’ from the course organisers:

  • There will be 3 separate ticket releases: the major release will be as above on Wednesday, 26th October, a smaller allocation will be released on Wednesday, 7th December and a final limited release on Wednesday, 1st February
  • Your best chance will be with the first release, but if you really need to wait until you have leave confirmed then you can chance your hand on the February release
  • All prior delegates will receive an email reminder the week before tickets go on sale, but there is no other preference (first in best dressed!)
  • Owing to the limited number of spots there will be no DAY ONLY registrations issue
  • Workshop registration also opens on Wednesday, 26th October and like last year will be on a first come first served basis
  • If you miss out on a ticket there will be a waiting list
  • If you miss your preferred workshop there will also be a waiting list

You can check out the program here and registration fees here

Don’t worry if you can’t make it – all smacc talks are published free on line and you’ll find talks from the last four conferences at the smacc site

Good Luck!

Awesome Conference on the Sunshine Coast


The Spring Seminar on Emergency Medicine is going to Noosa in September 2016!
In case you haven’t been to an SSEM before – this is a boutique Australasian emergency conference run by a not-for-profit organisation. It is squarely aimed at EM clinicans who like to get their hands dirty. The emphasis is on practical stuff: SSEM is legendary for the quality of its workshops.
It is legendary too for its venues! The last three SSEMs have been held in the Barossa Valley, Darwin and Rotorua. The extracurricular activities are brilliant and the conference draws bright, outward-going, active clinicians from all around Australasia.
This year the academic programme has been expanded with keynotes from 3 leading EM figures, deliberately controversial panel sessions and hot topics, and six awesome workshops on Snakebite (in Australia Zoo), Wilderness Medicine (in the National Park), Difficult Ventilation, Emergency Dentistry, Focused Echocardiography and Lung Ultrasound.
Extracurricular activities include a Welcome Reception with celebrity chef Matt Golinski, early morning activities on Noosa Beach, trips to Eumundi Market and the Spirit House Cooking School and a Beach Party Conference Dinner.
The conference starts with a reception in the Boat House on Tuesday 26 September and wraps up at midday on Friday 30 September with Townsville vs Nambour Simulympics.
There are concessional rates for generalists, trainees, nurses and students. Early bird rates apply until 10 July however the workshops are booking out fast so – book now!

Declaration of interest: I have no involvement in this conference, but I wish I was going!

Louisa in London – Prehospital Lessons from LTC2015

The London Trauma Conference remains up there on my list of ‘must go’ conferences to attend. It marks the end of the year, fills me with hope and inspires me for the future. Unfortunately this year I was torn between the conference and the demands of clinical directorship so I could only get to the “Air Ambulance & Prehospital Care Day”. At least this way I’m saved from the dilemma of which sessions to attend!
So what were the highlights of the Prehospital Day? For me, they were Prehospital ECMO,’Picking Up the Pieces’, and the REBOA update.
Prehospital ECMO
Professor Pierre Carli gave us an update on prehospital ECMO. Professor Carli (not to be confused with the equally awesome Professor Carley) is the medical director of Service d’Aide Médicale Urgente (SAMU) in Paris. They’ve been doing prehospital ECMO in Paris since 2011 and the data analysed over three years reveals a 10% survival to hospital discharge rate. We know from the work in Asia that successful outcome following traditional cardiac arrest management and ECPR is related to the speed of the intervention. Transposing the time to intervention from his 2011 – 2013 data onto the survival curve that Chen et al produced explains why the success rate is limited:
LTC2015
The revised 2015 process aims to reduce the duration of CPR, reduce time to ECMO and therefore improve survival to discharge rates. They are doing this by dispatching the ECMO team earlier.
The eligibility criteria for ECPR is also changing; patients >18 and <75years, refractory cardiac arrest (defined as failure of ROSC after 20min of CPR), no flow for < 5 minutes with shockable rhythm or signs of life or hypothermia or intoxication, EtCO2 > 10mmHg at time of inclusion and no major comorbidity.
Already there appears to be an improvement with 16 patients treated using the revised protocol with 5 survivors (31%) – although we must be wary of the small numbers.
A concern that was expressed by the French Department of Health was the fear of a reduction in organ donation with the introduction of ECPR – it turns out that rates have remained stable. In fact the condition of non heart beating donated organs is better when ECMO has been instigated; the long term effects on organ donation are being assessed.
I’m without doubt that prehospital ECMO/ED ECMO is the future although currently in the UK our hospital systems aren’t ready for this. If you want to learn more then look at the ED ECMO site or book on one of the many emerging courses on ED ECMO including the one that is run by Dr Simon Finney at the London Trauma Conference, or if you want to go further afield you could try San Diego (although places are fully booked on the next course).
Picking Up the Pieces
The Keynote speaker was Professor Sir Simon Wessely. He is a psychiatrist with a specialist interest in military psychology and his brief was to describe to us the public response to traumatic incidents. He has worked with the military and in civilian situations. After the 7/7 London bombings the population of London was surveyed: those most likely to be affected were of lower social class, of Muslim faith, those that had a relative that was injured, those unsure of the safety of others, those with no previous experience of terrorism and those experiencing difficulty in contacting others by mobile phone. Obviously there are many factors that we cannot influence however on the basis of the last risk factor our response to incidents has changed – the active discouragement to make phone calls has been changed to a recommendation of making short calls to friends and relatives.
The previous practice of offering immediate psychological debriefing to those involved in incidents was discounted by Prof Wessely – his research demonstrated that this intervention was not only not required but could actually result in harm: only a minority have ongoing psychological distress that can benefit from formal psychological input, which should occur later.
The approach that should be taken is to allow that individual to utilise their own social networks (family, friends, and colleagues) and to accept that in some cases the individual may not want or need to talk. This has led to the development of the Trauma Risk Management (TRIM) system which provides individuals within organisations that are exposed to traumatic events the skills required to identify those at risk of developing psychological problems and to recognise the signs and symptoms of those in difficulty. To a certain extent we naturally do this for our peers – I have spent many a night sitting in the ‘Good Samaritan’ pub with colleagues from the Royal London Hospital and London’s Air Ambulance – but having a more formal system is probably of benefit to enable those who have ongoing difficulties to access additional support.
REBOA update
Finally, the REBOA update – Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta. One year on, Dr Sammy Sadek informed us that there are now more courses teaching the REBOA technique than there are (prehospital) patients that have received it. Over the last year only seven patients have qualified for this intervention in London, far fewer than they had anticipated. Another three patients died before REBOA could be instigated. All patients had a positive cardiovascular response. Four of the seven died from causes other than exsanguination. Is it worth all the effort and resource to deliver this intervention when such a select group will benefit?
Obviously there was much more covered in the day, this is just a taste. If you’ve never been to the London Trauma Conference then I definitely would recommend it and even if you have been before there are so many breakout sessions now there is always something for everyone.
More on the London Trauma Conference:

Merry Christmas and see you next year!
Louisa Chan

London Trauma Conference 2014 Part 1

I’ve travelled almost the entire length of England to get to the London Trauma Conference this year. What could be more important than attending one of the best conferences of the year? Examining for the DipRTM at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh
So was it worth the 4am start? Absolutely!
tomMy highlights would be Tom Evens explaining why trauma can be regarded like an elite sport. His background is as a sports coach in addition to his medical accomplishments and walking us through the journey he went through with the athlete he was coaching demonstrates the changes that need to occur when cultivating a performance culture and the results speak for themselves.
I can see similarities in the techniques used by athletes and those we are using in medicine now. Developing a highly performing team isn’t easy as anyone involved in the training of these teams will know.
 
 
jerry3Dr Jerry Nolan answered some questions about cervical spine movement in airway management. The most movement is seen in the upper cervical spine and there is no surprise that there is an increased incidence of cervical spine injury in unconscious patients (10%). The bottom line is that no movement clinicians will make of the cervical spine is greater than that at the time of injury. And whether it be basic airway manoeuvres, laryngoscopy or cricoid pressure the degree of movement is in the same ball park and unlikely to cause further injury. He states that he would use MILS like cricoid pressure and have a low threshold for releasing it if there are difficulties with the intubation. Of course many of us don’t use cricoid pressure in RSI anymore………..
 
After watching Tom and Jerry we heard that ATLS has had its day. Dr Matthew Wiles implores us to reserve ATLS for the inexperienced and move away from this outdated system and move to training in teams using local policies. The Cochrane reviewers found an increase in knowledge but no change in outcomes.
And finally Dr Deasy has convinced me that I will be replaced by a robot roaming around providing remote enhanced care. On the up side I might be the clinician providing that support.
More from me on this fantastic conference soon. In the meantime follow it on Twitter!
telemed