The National Board of Echocardiography has developed an examination to assess echocardiography and ultrasound skills, which are required by many medical programs. Diane C. McLaughlin, DNP, AGACNP-BC, CCRN, FCCM, was joined by Sara Nikravan, MD, FASE, FCCM, at the 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss advanced echocardiography and the National Board of Echocardiography examination. Sara Nikravan, MD, FASE, FCCM, is director of point-of-care ultrasound and associate program director of...

According to the United Nations, climate change is the defining crisis of our time and is happening more quickly than anticipated. Can critical care professionals be the spark that lights the fire of change? Kyle B. Enfield, MD, FSHEA, FCCM, was joined by Srinivas Murthy, MD, MDCM, MHSc, at the 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss the intersection of climate change and critical care. Dr. Murthy is a pediatric infectious diseases and intensive care physician at the University of British...

Maureen A. Madden, DNP, RN, CPNP-AC, CCRN, FCCM, is joined by Craig M. Coopersmith, MD, FACS, MCCM, to discuss optimal strategies for preventing sepsis and septic shock in the hospital setting. Explore the challenges faced in integrating these strategies into hospital workflows and gain insights into the significant contributions made by multiple team members. This podcast is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through a grant program administered by the Council of Medical...

The power of scientific collaboration has a broad reach. During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 7000 clinical trials were registered, with more than 100 different countries represented. Samantha Gambles Farr, MSN, NP-C, CCRN, RNFA, was joined by SCCM Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient John C. Marshall, MD, FRCSC, FACS, at the 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss the importance of research and scientific collaboration. Dr. Marshall has been involved in research programs with researchers...

The ICU Liberation Campaign aims to liberate patients from the harmful effects of an intensive care unit (ICU) stay. The campaign is expanding to include more resources for children and infants. Host Ludwig Lin, MD, was joined by Jerry Zimmerman, MD, PhD, FCCM, at the 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss ICU Liberation and how it is being adapted to improve care in the pediatric ICU. Dr. Zimmerman is an attending physician in the pediatric ICU at Seattle Children’s Hospital and professor of...

Implicit bias is a form of automatic and unintentional bias that affects judgments, decisions, and behaviors. Implicit bias can pose a barrier to the diagnosis and treatment of critical illness. Ludwig H. Lin, MD, is joined by Varun U. Shetty, MD, to discuss ways that critical care professionals can mitigate diagnostic delays and errors by being aware of their own implicit biases. Dr. Shetty is an adult intensivist who focuses on caring for critically ill patients in global health settings....

Guidelines recommend against red blood cell (RBC) transfusion in hemodynamically stable children without cardiac disease who meet certain criteria. Maureen A. Madden, DNP, RN, CPNP-AC, CCRN, FCCM, is joined by Katherine Steffen, MD, MHS, to discuss the clinical and economic impacts of compliance with RBC transfusion guidelines, as discussed in "The Impact of Restrictive Transfusion Practices on Hemodynamically Stable Critically Ill Children Without Heart Disease: A Secondary Analysis of the...

For more than 10 years, the Society of Critical Care Medicine has offered an in-person critical care ultrasound course that spanned two days, interspersing lectures with interactive training. This format has now been replaced by a hybrid format, allowing more countries to host the course, virtually or in person, to ensure that healthcare professionals continue to receive optimized ultrasound training and education. Diane C. McLaughlin, DNP, AGACNP-BC, CCRN, FCCM, was joined by Sarah E. Bain,...

Marilyn N. Bulloch, PharmD, BCPS, FCCM, and Daleen Penoyer, PhD, RN, CCRP, FCNS, FAAN, FCCM, discuss how to develop and operationalize performance improvement teams to implement the Surviving Sepsis Campaign’s (SSC) Hour-1 Bundle, which was developed in 2021 to minimize time to treatment for patients with sepsis and septic shock. Explore how to overcome barriers teams encounter in implementing the bundle, including inflexibility, lack of awareness about the bundle, competing priorities, and...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals implemented tele-critical care medicine to help patients while keeping staff safe from exposure. Now that patient care has gone back to normal, what is the role of tele-critical care medicine? Donald S. Prough, MD, FCCM, was joined by Krzysztof Laudanski, MD, PhD, FCCM, and Sonia S. Everhart, PharmD, BCPS, BCCCP, FCCM, during the 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss how tele-critical care medicine was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic and its...

Although the variety of noninvasive interfaces for pediatric patients has grown in the past 10 years, they are still limited. Pediatric interfaces are typically scaled down from adult to child sizes, which does not consider the contours of a growing child’s face, causing poor fit in patients of certain ages. Donald S. Prough, MD, FCCM, was joined by Natalie Napolitano, MPH, RRT-NPS, during the 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss how clinicians’ need to have the right equipment for their...

The Viral Infection and Respiratory Illness Universal Study (VIRUS) is a prospective, cross-sectional, observational study and registry of all eligible adult and pediatric patients who are admitted to a hospital. Marilyn N. Bulloch, PharmD, BCPS, FCCM, was joined by Rahul Kashyap, MD, MBA, at the 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss the Discovery VIRUS COVID-19 Registry. Dr. Kashyap is an assistant professor and clinical research scientist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA.

From the earliest days of critical care medicine, the importance of measuring cardiac output and hemodynamic monitoring were recognized in understanding the physiology of critically ill patients, especially those in shock. However, methods for measuring cardiac output were cumbersome or not widely available. Ashish K. Khanna, MD, FCCP, FCCM, is joined by Margaret M. Parker, MD, MCCM, to discuss the evolution of the pulmonary artery catheter in critically ill patients, as discussed in "The...

Discovery, the Critical Care Research Network, is an SCCM program that aims to expand research and improve outcomes. Discovery has launched the Data Science Campaign to leverage large-scale (big) data for research, seeking to apply these data in a clinical environment through standardized models and shared resources. Kyle B. Enfield, MD, FSHEA, FCCM, was joined by J. Perren Cobb, MD, FACS, FCCM, and Karin Reuter-Rice, PhD, NP, FAAN, FCCM, at SCCM's 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss the...

Intensive care unit (ICU) clinicians pride themselves on their ability to care for others, even at the expense of caring for themselves. Kyle B. Enfield, MD, FSHEA, FCCM, was joined by Emily K. Valcin, DNP, RN, FCCM, during SCCM’s 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss ICU clinician well-being and the importance of self-care.

Healthcare professionals who want to make a job change often do not know how to go about it. Impending job searches seem daunting. Ludwig Lin, MD, was joined by Mojdeh Heavner, PharmD, BCCCP, BCPS, FCCM, during SCCM's 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss the dos and don'ts of changing jobs mid-career.

Confident, well-rounded leaders can increase the efficiency of their critical care unit, improve the performance of their teams, and ultimately achieve better patient outcomes. Marilyn Bulloch, PharmD, BCPS, FCCM, was joined by Judith Jacobi, PharmD, BCCCP, MCCM, during SCCM’s 2023 Critical Care Congress to discuss how the new Leadership, Empowerment, and Development (LEAD) Committee will engage participants in a variety of didactic and small-group sessions to facilitate their progress as...

Diagnostic delays and errors are significant contributors to patient illness, injury, and death in the United States. According to the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, diagnostic errors impact nearly 12 million Americans every year, leading to prolonged hospital stays, increased nonreimbursed healthcare costs, and even more harm when combined with other medical errors. Maureen Madden, DNP, RN, CPNP-AC, CCRN, FCCM, is joined by Mary Jo C. Grant, ACNP, PhD, FAAN, to discuss how to...

The contribution of adverse events to the deaths of patients in the pediatric ICU (PICU) who die despite a low predicted mortality risk is unknown. Elizabeth H. Mack, MD, MS, FCCM, is joined by Carin W. Verlaat, MD, to discuss adverse events in low-risk nonsurvivors compared with low-risk survivors and high-risk PICU survivors and nonsurvivors and the contribution of adverse events to mortality. The podcast centers around the article, Adverse Events in Pediatric Critical Care Nonsurvivors...

Bloodstream infections (BSIs) acquired in the ICU are potentially preventable. Kyle B. Enfield, MD, FSHEA, FCCM, is joined by Sameer S. Kadri-Rodriguez, MD, MS, to discuss the article, Epidemiology of ICU-Onset Bloodstream Infection: Prevalence, Pathogens, and Risk Factors Among 150,948 ICU Patients at 85 U.S. Hospitals, (Gouel-Cheron A, et al. Crit Care Med. 2022;50:1725-1736). Dr. Kadri-Rodriguez is a critical care and infectious diseases physician at the National Institutes of Health...

Although only a small number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 present with a secondary bacterial pneumonia, a large percentage are unnecessarily treated with antibiotics. Pamela M. Peeke, MD, MPH, FACP, FACSM, is joined by George Sakoulas, MD, to discuss how physicians and hospitalists can identify when antibiotics are unnecessary for hospitalized patients with moderate to severe respiratory infections. Dr. Sakoulas is chief of infectious disease at Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group in...

The American Heart Association's (AHA) cardiopulmonary resuscitation guidelines recommend against the routine administration of IV calcium during pediatric cardiopulmonary arrest because of its association with worse outcomes. However, IV calcium is routinely used in children with heart disease who have cardiopulmonary arrest. Maureen A. Madden, DNP, RN, CPNP-AC, CCRN, FCCM, is joined by Gurpreet S. Dhillon, MD, to discuss the article, Calcium Administration During Cardiopulmonary...

Todd Fraser, MD, speaks with Rinaldo Bellomo, MD, MBBS, FRACP, FCICM, FAAHMS, about the article Outcomes in Patients with Vasodilatory Shock and Renal Replacement Therapy Treated with Intravenous Angiotensin II

Todd Fraser, MD, speaks with John D. Santamaria, MBBS, MD, FRACP, FCICM, FCCP, about the article: Increasing the Number of Medical Emergency Calls Does Not Improve Hospital Mortality

Kyle B. Enfield, MD, and Kimberley J. Haines, PhD, BHSc, discuss implementing post-ICU clinics and peer support groups following critical illness to help reduce the burden of post-intensive care syndrome.