Hot off the blog-press is PulmCCM's new Educational Resources section. This exciting new endeavor will be a forum for sharing your knowledge with the world. If you've created a useful educational clinical resource, why limit your audience to your colleagues at your local institution? Increase your impact exponentially by posting your work on PulmCCM where thousands can learn and benefit. [... read more]

The post PulmCCM launches new educational content section: your submissions welcome appeared first on PulmCCM.

Image: Airwaycam Endotracheal intubation is a routine but high-stakes maneuver, performed uneventfully thousands of times daily throughout the developed world. In the U.S., elective (routine) intubation is almost exclusively the domain of anesthesiologists, who become masters of the technique through thousands of iterations throughout training and their careers. The vast majority of these intubations take [... read more]

The post Should video-guided intubation be standard training in critical care? (And should anesthesiologists teach it?) appeared first on PulmCCM.

Subglottic suctioning can prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), but much of the research showing its benefits was performed prior to wide adoption of the so-called “VAP bundle,” widely believed to reduce VAP incidence. This led some to question any additive benefits of subglottic suctioning. Authors of a new randomized trial found that subglottic suctioning also reduced ventilator-associated pneumonia incidence in a [... read more]

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Image: Wikipedia Acute pancreatitis is a common and usually self-limited illness resolving after a few days of rest and not eating. A minority of people develop severe pancreatitis with necrosis, which can transform pancreatitis into an ordeal lasting weeks or months, characterized by multi-organ failure, infections, and a >15% mortality rate. Those infections are believed to be caused by [... read more]

The post Nutrition in severe pancreatitis: none at all (for 3 days) worked fine appeared first on PulmCCM.

The smoking cessation drug varenicline (Chantix) works by weakly activating and also blocking nicotine receptors in the brain, simultaneously. This neat trick has the dual effects of reducing tobacco cravings while also blunting the “high” from smoking. That combination has made Chantix the most successful smoking-cessation therapy on the market, but it costs about $500 for [... read more]

The post Cytisine for smoking cessation: as good as nicotine replacement — and cheap appeared first on PulmCCM.

Here are some of the biggest stories and most important published research findings in critical care and respiratory medicine for 2014. Enjoy, and subscribe to the PulmCCM weekly email newsletter to stay up to date in pulmonary and critical care. Early goal directed therapy does not improve outcomes in septic shock (ProCESS) Are traditional protocols [... read more]

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