Mastering Intensive Care

Mastering Intensive Care page on Life In The Fast Lane

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 5 with Jamie Cooper

Andrew Davies on Twitter: @andrewdavies66

Andrew Davies on Instagram: @andrewdavies66

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Ed Litton at University of Western Australia

Mastering Intensive Challenges - Run Larapinta - Episode 1 Apr 14, 2023

Show notes

We are trying something different on Mastering Intensive Care.

My friend and fellow intensivist Ed Litton has cajoled me into joining him in a running event.

We will be running the Run Larapinta Stage Race in August 2023.

In this episode, we commence a mini-series discussing our lead up to the event.

Ed and I have different backgrounds as amateur endurance event participants, and in this episode, you'll hear some of Ed's endurance accomplishments, what the Run Larapinta event involves, and what we are both pondering as we start ramping up our training.

If you are a runner, an endurance activity participant, a person who exercises regularly, or someone who enjoys hearing about other people's challenges, I hope you will enjoy listening in.

Andrew Davies

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Relevant links

Ed Litton on Twitter: @ed_litton

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 40 with Ed Litton

Run Larapinta Stage Race

Andrew Davies on Twitter: @andrewdavies66

Andrew Davies on Instagram: @andrewdavies66

Email Andrew Davies

Chris Nickson at Life In The Fast Lane

78 - Chris Nickson - Modern & innovative clinician education Apr 04, 2023

Show notes

This episode features the thoughts and perspectives of A/Prof Chris Nickson.

The topics covered include:

How Chris became an intensivist and then an educator
How he began working on Life In The Fast Lane (LITFL)
The network of Clinical Educators he leads and the "Incubator" program
Simulation and debriefing
The current place of FOAM and podcasts in education
What he tries to achieve on his ward round
Clinical leadership, team dynamics and the necessity of psychological safety
The difficulties of fatigue and undervaluing sleep
Other aspects of personal wellbeing
His reading (including a book recommendation)
The future of Intensive Care, especially after COVID-19
Advice for new intensivists
Advice on teaching the human aspects of ICU

Chris Nickson is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at the Alfred ICU in Melbourne and a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. He is the Lead for the ANZCEN Clinician Educator Incubator programme, a Director of the Australia and New Zealand Intensive Care Foundation, and a First Part Examiner for the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives.

After finishing his medical degree at the University of Auckland, he continued post-graduate training in New Zealand as well as Australia's Northern Territory, Perth and Melbourne. He has completed fellowship training in intensive care medicine and emergency medicine; and post-graduate training in biochemistry, clinical toxicology, clinical epidemiology, and health professions education.

Chris is involved in the Alfred ICU's education and simulation programmes and runs the unit's education website, INTENSIVE. He created the 'Critically Ill Airway' course and teaches numerous courses worldwide. He is one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) and is co-creator of litfl.com, the RAGE podcast, the Resuscitology course, and the SMACC conference.

His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.

On Twitter, he is @precordialthump.

Thanks for listening to my conversation with Chris Nickson.

Andrew Davies

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Links related to Chris Nickson

Chris Nickson on Twitter: @precordialthump

Chris Nickson on LinkedIn

Life In The Fast Lane

Intensive blog

Links to other resources (in order of mentioning)

David Galler

Mike Cadogan

Aequanimitas

Clinician Educator Incubator program

Academic Life In Emergency Medicine blog

Book "How The World Really Works" (by Vaclav Smil)

Bill Gates

Links related to Mastering Intensive Care podcast

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 5 with Jamie Cooper

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 45 with Scott Weingart

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 59 with Steve McLoughlin

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 63 with Steve Philpot

Andrew Davies on Twitter: @andrewdavies66

Andrew Davies on Instagram: @andrewdavies66

Email Andrew Davies

Article in New York Times "There's a Name for the Blah You're Feeling: It's Called Languishing" (by Adam Grant)

77 - Recovering from the pandemic Dec 24, 2022

Show notes

Mastering Intensive Care is returning from being offline for a full 12 months. In this episode, I ask you to ponder, "how are you going?" after the lengthy pandemic, which has lulled after the worst of the storm but has not yet settled into a state of calm.

Whilst few intensive care clinicians have actively diminished what we've been through over the last few years, the relentless world of Intensive Care continues unabated. There have been many learnings from the pandemic, but we mustn't sweep the emotions we've witnessed under the carpet.

As you listen to this shorter episode than usual, I hope you'll ponder questions about how you have managed yourself during the pandemic, both individually and in your local ICU community. I share what I've witnessed in myself and my colleagues before offering a few thoughts on where we might focus our actions in recovering from what we've been through.

Thank you for listening as I use this opportunity to reinvigorate this podcast after 12 months of languishing.

Andrew Davies

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About the Mastering Intensive Care podcast: The podcast aims to inspire and empower Intensive Care clinicians through conversations about the human side of Intensive Care to bring their best selves to work by focusing on compassion, collaboration and personal wellbeing.

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Links to resources discussed (in order of mentioning)

Article in New York Times "There's a Specific Kind of Joy We've Been Missing" (by Adam Grant)

Mastering Intensive Care episode - Persevering Through A Pandemic - 1 - Sick Of COVID

Mastering Intensive Care episode - Persevering Through A Pandemic - 2 - It Was Inconceivable

Mastering Intensive Care episode - Persevering Through A Pandemic - 3 - Ultramarathon

Mastering Intensive Care episode - Persevering Through A Pandemic - 4 - Best & Worst Year

Mastering Intensive Care episode - Persevering Through A Pandemic - 5 - 'Life' Support For Our People

Mastering Intensive Care episode - Persevering Through A Pandemic - 6 - Learnings We Might Take Away

Links related to Mastering Intensive Care podcast

Andrew Davies on Twitter: @andrewdavies66

Andrew Davies on Instagram: @andrewdavies66

Email Andrew Davies

Book "Every Deep-Drawn Breath" (by Wes Ely)

Persevering Through A Pandemic - 6 - Learnings We Might Take Away Dec 20, 2021

Show notes

This episode focuses on learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic. Important lessons our global Intensive Care community, your local ICU and you personally might take away from what the novel coronavirus has caused - at least so far.

Previous episodes of this series (a series best listened to in episode order) have allowed you to hear the experiences of busy ICU clinicians, the work of an ICU clinical psychologist, and some supportive strategies different institutions have used during the pandemic. Here you'll listen to the valuable thoughts and considerations about topics including personal wellbeing, awareness of mindset, effects on healthcare workers as a group and even some possible gains from the pandemic hardship.

In this sixth episode of the "Persevering Through A Pandemic" series, the guests (in order of appearance) are Dr Rana Awdish, Dr Hayley Gershengorn, Dr Laura Rock, Dr Wes Ely, CCRN Simone Hannah-Clark, Dr Peter Brindley, Dr Matt Morgan, Dr Hugh Montgomery, Dr Georg Auzinger and Dr Julie Highfield.

I firmly believe that ICU clinicians across the world need to spend time reflecting, processing or simply healing from this pandemic. Reinvigorating ourselves from the difficulties we've suffered and restoring ourselves for whatever is to come. My hope is this episode will help you to do this.

Thank you for listening to these wise and thoughtful Intensive Care clinicians speak about how they've been "Persevering Through A Pandemic".

Andrew Davies

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Links to featured guests (in order of appearance)

Dr Rana Awdish

Dr Rana Awdish on Twitter @RanaAwdish

Dr Hayley Gershengorn

Dr Hayley Gershengorn on Twitter @HBGMD

Dr Laura Rock

Dr Laura Rock on Twitter @drlaurarock

Dr Wes Ely

Dr Wes Ely on Twitter @WesElyMD

CCRN Simone Hannah-Clark

CCRN Simone Hannah-Clark on Twitter @kiwi_yankee

Dr Peter Brindley

Dr Peter Brindley on Twitter @docpgb

Dr Matthew Morgan

Dr Matthew Morgan on Twitter @dr_mattmorgan

Dr Hugh Montgomery

Dr Hugh Montgomery on Twitter @hugh_montgomery

Dr Georg Auzinger

Dr Julie Highfield

Dr Julie Highfield on Twitter @DrJulie_H

Links to other resources (in order of mentioning)

Links related to Mastering Intensive Care podcast

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 15 with Peter Brindley

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 33 with Wes Ely

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 36 with Hayley Gershengorn

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 41 with Rana Awdish

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 47 with Matt Morgan

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 48 with Laura Rock

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 49 with Hugh Montgomery

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 57 with Georg Auzinger

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 60 with Simone Hannah-Clark

Andrew Davies on Twitter: @andrewdavies66

Andrew Davies on Instagram: @andrewdavies66

Email Andrew Davies

Persevering Through A Pandemic - 5 - 'Life' Support For Our People Dec 13, 2021

Show notes

Intensive Care clinicians are used to being busy. Critically ill patients constantly arrive in the ICU with no awareness of staff workload at that moment. So being busy has not been the major problem of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The difficult emotional responses to physical exhaustion, mental strain, heart-breaking human loss and the unpredictability of SARS-CoV-2 have been significant, and the commonly held attitude of "just power through" has not been sustainable. Instead, the most critical influence on the overall wellbeing of Intensive Care practitioners has been the degree to which they have felt supported socially.

Maintaining social support and cohesion is hard. Intensive Care professionals have often depended on social support through camaraderie and workplace culture yet have been crying out during this healthcare crisis to hospital administrators, often in vain, for direct and valuable supportive measures for staff wellbeing.

The pandemic has therefore required a more healing and individual-focused type of supportive strategy. Coming up with successful strategies is not easy and a specific strategy will not support all individuals in all contexts. So, ICU teams have had to try a mixture of strategies, philosophies, support groups, or simply caring attitudes to provide effective staff wellbeing support.

In this fifth episode of the "Persevering Through A Pandemic" series, you'll hear some of the types of supportive actions that my guests in this series have witnessed in their ICUs and hospitals. My guests on the episode (in order of appearance) are Dr Hugh Montgomery, Dr Rana Awdish, CCRN Simone Hannah-Clark, Dr Hayley Gershengorn, Dr Laura Rock, Dr Matt Morgan, Dr Peter Brindley, Dr Wes Ely and Dr Georg Auzinger.

There is so much we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. My hope is this episode will help you as a listener to reflect on and to process your own pandemic experience whilst hearing lessons you might take away to your Intensive Care community.

Thank you for listening to these wise and thoughtful Intensive Care clinicians tell you how they've been "Persevering Through A Pandemic".

Andrew Davies

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Links to featured guests (in order of appearance)

Dr Hugh Montgomery

Dr Hugh Montgomery on Twitter @hugh_montgomery

Dr Rana Awdish

Dr Rana Awdish on Twitter @RanaAwdish

CCRN Simone Hannah-Clark

CCRN Simone Hannah-Clark on Twitter @kiwi_yankee

Dr Hayley Gershengorn

Dr Hayley Gershengorn on Twitter @HBGMD

Dr Laura Rock

Dr Laura Rock on Twitter @drlaurarock

Dr Matthew Morgan

Dr Matthew Morgan on Twitter @dr_mattmorgan

Dr Peter Brindley

Dr Peter Brindley on Twitter @docpgb

Dr Wes Ely

Dr Wes Ely on Twitter @WesElyMD

Dr Georg Auzinger

Links related to Mastering Intensive Care podcast

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 15 with Peter Brindley

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 33 with Wes Ely

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 36 with Hayley Gershengorn

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 41 with Rana Awdish

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 47 with Matt Morgan

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 48 with Laura Rock

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 49 with Hugh Montgomery

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 57 with Georg Auzinger

Mastering Intensive Care podcast - Episode 60 with Simone Hannah-Clark

Andrew Davies on Twitter: @andrewdavies66

Andrew Davies on Instagram: @andrewdavies66

Email Andrew Davies

Wellbeing Hub at Intensive Care Society website

Persevering Through A Pandemic - 4 - Best & Worst Year Dec 06, 2021

Show notes

The physical, mental and emotional burden of the COVID-19 pandemic on Intensive Care clinicians has been colossal. Many ICU staff, of all types and at all levels, have suffered significant psychological effects.

After hearing the pandemic experiences and perspectives of bedside clinicians in recent episodes, the focus of today's episode is a clinical psychologist who's been working inside several busy ICUs and supported hundreds of people across the United Kingdom during the pandemic.

In this fourth episode of the "Persevering Through A Pandemic" series, you'll hear the thoughts of Dr Julie Highfield who has led a national UK-based wellbeing program in response to COVID-19. Dr Highfield works as a consultant clinical psychologist in several ICUs in Wales and has an additional role as the National Wellbeing Director for the Intensive Care Society in the UK.

In this episode Julie talks about:

The first year of the pandemic feeling like the best and worst year of her life
Her witnessing of ICU staff "just getting on with it" and "shelving their feelings"
The types of support she provided – in both her local ICUs and across the UK
Which support worked best for which staff
The value of one-on-one sessions - yet their impracticality in a pandemic
The types of group sessions she led
Two typical examples of who Julie has been supporting
What surprised her about the ICU teams
The rise in the number of UK ICUs with a clinical psychologist
The value of having a clinical psychologist embedded in an ICU
How Julie fared herself during the height of the pandemic
Her thoughts on the restrictions to visitors caused by COVID-19
The lingering effects of this pandemic
Advice for people who are considering championing wellbeing in their ICUs.

The culture around wellbeing in our ICUs is slowly changing and the effects of the COVID-19 may accelerate this. A good psychologist is vital to stimulating that change and to providing valuable assistance.

My hope is that this episode, as part of a focused series of episodes, will help Intensive Care clinicians to reflect on their own experiences and to learn valuable lessons about psychological aspects of the pandemic. Thank you for listening to the wise and supportive Dr Julie Highfield, an ideal person to share perspectives on how ICU clinicians have been "Persevering Through A Pandemic".

Andrew Davies

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Links to featured guests

Dr Julie Highfield

Julie Highfield on Twitter @DrJulie_H

Psychologists In Critical Care UK (PINC-UK)

Links related to Mastering Intensive Care podcast

Andrew Davies on Twitter: @andrewdavies66

Andrew Davies on Instagram: @andrewdavies66

Email Andrew Davies

Book "Critical" (by Matt Morgan)

Persevering Through A Pandemic - 3 - Ultramarathon Nov 29, 2021

Show notes

Whilst some people choose to run long distances, caring for patients in the ICU is not supposed to feel like an ultramarathon.

If you work in the complex, high stress, emotion-generating environment of an ICU, it might sometimes feel like you are the logistics organiser of an ultimate endurance event, but you should hardly feel like you are a competitor.

Yet when COVID-19 arrived, the initial sprint became a marathon and that's now turned into a seemingly never-ending ultramarathon.

In this third episode of the "Persevering Through A Pandemic" series, you'll hear about this pandemic ultramarathon and the effects it's had on the people working in ICUs in the UK. A period which has been physically and emotionally difficult yet has provided glimpses of career satisfaction along the journey.

Amongst other topics, UK intensivists Drs Matt Morgan, Hugh Montgomery & Georg Auzinger talk honestly about their worst pandemic days, the discomfort that they and their colleagues felt, how their teams kept afloat in such an overwhelming situation and the lingering effects on clinician mental health. There is mention of an interesting letter one of them sent and a special kind of chocolate cake!

My hope is this will help you as a listener to reflect on and to process your own pandemic experience whilst hearing lessons you might take away to your Intensive Care community.

Thank you for listening to these wise and thoughtful Intensive Care clinicians tell you how they've been "Persevering Through A Pandemic".

Andrew Davies

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Links to featured guests

Dr Matthew Morgan

Matt Morgan on Twitter @dr_mattmorgan

Matt Morgan – Previous episode on Mastering Intensive Care

Dr Hugh Montgomery

Hugh Montgomery on Twitter @hugh_montgomery

Hugh Montgomery – Previous episode on Mastering Intensive Care

Dr Georg Auzinger

Georg Auzinger – Previous episode on Mastering Intensive Care

Links related to Mastering Intensive Care podcast

Andrew Davies on Twitter: @andrewdavies66

Andrew Davies on Instagram: @andrewdavies66

Email Andrew Davies

Book "In Shock" (by Rana Awdish)

Persevering Through A Pandemic - 2 - It Was Inconceivable Nov 22, 2021

Show notes

Just like a surf beach shore, waves of COVID-19 keep crashing over the world's Intensive Care Units. The waves have been unpredictable and pattern less, ravaging the ICUs and the people that work in them, often inconceivably.

In this second episode of the "Persevering Through A Pandemic" series, you'll hear from Intensive Care professionals about the COVID-19 pandemic which continues to affect ICUs across the globe.

Amongst other topics, US intensivists Drs Rana Awdish & Dr Hayley Gershengorn, and Critical Care nurse Simone Hannah-Clark talk honestly about their worst pandemic days, the feelings of guilt, fear, anxiety and overall depletion, the effects on their family, what they witnessed in their struggling colleagues and how they dealt with the strain. You'll also hear valuable thoughts on the nursing perspective, the difficult experience of being a patient in a pandemic, and the tension between the support from the community and the flagrant COVID-19 deniers.

There have been many emotional and heart-breaking conversations in ICUs all over the world during this pandemic. And we as their healthcare providers have emotions to express too. My belief is that we need to have conversations as colleagues, and as an Intensive Care community, about what we have been and are continuing to go through.

My hope is that this series will help you as a listener to reflect on and to process your own pandemic experience whilst hearing lessons you might take away to your Intensive Care community.

Thank you for listening to these wise and thoughtful Intensive Care clinicians tell you how they've been "Persevering Through A Pandemic".

Andrew Davies

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Links to featured guests

Dr Rana Awdish

Rana Awdish on Twitter @RanaAwdish

Rana Awdish – Previous episode on Mastering Intensive Care

Dr Hayley Gershengorn

Hayley Gershengorn on Twitter @HBGMD

Hayley Gershengorn – Previous episode on Mastering Intensive Care

CCRN Simone Hannah-Clark

Simone Hannah-Clark on Twitter @kiwi_yankee

Simone Hannah-Clark – Previous episode on Mastering Intensive Care

Links related to Mastering Intensive Care podcast

Andrew Davies on Twitter: @andrewdavies66

Andrew Davies on Instagram: @andrewdavies66

Email Andrew Davies