Ultrasound-guided Pleural Effusion Drainage With a Small Catheter Using the Single-step Trocar or Modified Seldinger Technique

Ultrasound-guided Pleural Effusion Drainage With a Small Catheter Using the Single-step Trocar or Modified Seldinger Technique

Ultrasound-guided pleural effusion drainage by catheter insertion is a safe and effective procedure. The success rate is low when the effusion is loculated and septated. Both the trocar and the modified Seldinger techniques... read more

One of the Deadliest Hospital-Acquired Infections Is Preventable

One of the Deadliest Hospital-Acquired Infections Is Preventable

Johns Hopkins Study Shows One of the Deadliest Hospital-Acquired Infections Is Preventable. For some hospital patients, going on a ventilator is often the difference between life and death. About 800,000 hospital patients... read more

Hemodynamic Support after Cardiac Surgery

Hemodynamic Support after Cardiac Surgery

Low cardiac output syndrome is a common complication of cardiac surgery and is associated with increased mortality. Levosimendan has been shown in small studies to be an effective therapy.... read more

Teen Who Walked While On Life Support is Home from Hospital

Teen Who Walked While On Life Support is Home from Hospital

For the past 467 days, Zei Uwadia has been hospitalized on life support -- but that hasn't kept the quiet-natured teenager from walking, eating her favorite foods or even doing planks as exercise. Now, with determination... read more

Antifungal Treatment in the ICU

Antifungal Treatment in the ICU

Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in critically ill patients. Almost 80% of IFIs are due to Candida spp., which are the third most common isolated microorganisms in the intensive... read more

Probiotic and Synbiotic Therapy in Critical Illness

Probiotic and Synbiotic Therapy in Critical Illness

Critical illness is characterized by a loss of commensal flora and an overgrowth of potentially pathogenic bacteria, leading to a high susceptibility to nosocomial infections. Probiotics are living non-pathogenic microorganisms,... read more

Critical Care Pharmacotherapeutics

Critical Care Pharmacotherapeutics

Critical Care Pharmacotherapeutics presents information on the fundamentals of critical care practice from a pharmacist's point of view. This accessible text is an excellent introduction to critical care pharmacy. Pharmacy... read more

Enough is Enough (O2 Saturation of 94-96%)

Enough is Enough (O2 Saturation of 94-96%)

The liberal use of supplemental oxygen therapy in acutely ill adults has a long history in the hospital, but high-quality therapy supporting its practice is unclear. Recently, the role of oxygen therapy in non-hypoxic patients... read more

Electrophysiological Investigations of Peripheral Nerves and Muscles

Electrophysiological Investigations of Peripheral Nerves and Muscles

Resting trans-membrane potential difference (Em) of skeletal muscle is correlated to the energy status of the organism: the more severe the illness, the lower the Em. In 1971, Cunningham demonstrated this association with... read more

Penn Medicine Shortens ICU Stays with Real-time Data

Penn Medicine Shortens ICU Stays with Real-time Data

Leveraging real-time data streams from its EHR platform, Penn Medicine has created a dashboard and alerting system to speed the process of getting ICU patients breathing on their own. Many patients in hospital intensive care... read more

Hoopla Aside, hs-cTnI is Not Catching Missed Mis

Hoopla Aside, hs-cTnI is Not Catching Missed Mis

We have been searching for a tool to identify myocardial infarction patients who are truly safe for discharge ever since Pope, et al., found that we were discharging two percent of patients with MIs from the emergency department.... read more

Aid Tool Does Not Help Care Decisions in Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation

Aid Tool Does Not Help Care Decisions in Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation

Treatment decisions commonly have to be made in intensive care units (ICUs). These decisions are difficult for surrogate decision makers and often lead to decisional conflict, psychological distress, and treatments misaligned... read more

Secrets of an Intensive Care Doctor

Secrets of an Intensive Care Doctor

There are few jobs that place you on the frontiers of human existence: midwives see lives into the world, undertakers oversee their departure. In between these beginnings and endings, surgeons, doctors and nurses interact... read more

Medical Dispatchers’ Perception of Visual Information in Real Out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrest

Medical Dispatchers’ Perception of Visual Information in Real Out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrest

Providing medical dispatchers with visual information from the location of OHCA might improve their understanding of the OHCA-scenario, which might enhance communication, their ability to guide more bystanders and improve... read more