Episode 69 Obesity Emergency Management

Current estimates of the prevalence of obesity are that a quarter of adult Canadians and one third of Americans are considered obese with approximately 3% being morbidly obese. With the proportion of patients with a BMI>30 growing every year, you’re likely to manage at least one obese patient on every ED shift. Obese patients are at high risk of developing a host of medical complications including diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, biliary disease, sleep apnea, cardiomyopathy, pulmonary embolism and depression, and are less likely compared to non-obese adults to receive timely care in the ED. Not only are these patients at higher risk for morbidity and mortality, but obesity emergency management is complicated by the patient’s altered cardiopulmonary physiology and drug metabolism. This can make their acute management much more challenging and dangerous. To help us gain a deeper understanding of the challenges of managing obese patients and elucidate a number of important differences as well as practical approaches to obesity emergency management, we welcome Dr. Andrew Sloas, the founder and creator of the fantastic pediatric EM podcast PEM ED, Dr. Richard Levitan, a world-famous airway management educator and innovator and Dr. David Barbic a prominent Canadian researcher in obesity in emergency medicine from University of British Columbia....

Best Case Ever 39 – Airway Strategy & Mental Preparedness in EM Procedures with Richard Levitan

I caught up with airway educator, innovator and self-described enthusiast Dr. Richard Levitan at SMACC in Chicago this past June. In this Best Case Ever on Airway Strategy and Mental Preparedness in EM Procedures, Dr. Levitan uses a great save of his in a penetrating trauma case as a basis for discussion on mental preparedness and how we've been thinking about our general approach to emergency procedures the wrong way. Rather than fixating on the final goal of a procedure, which can often be daunting and lead us astray, he suggests a methodical incrementalized and compartmentalized approach to EM procedures that reduces stress and fear, improves confidence and enhances success. He runs through several examples including intubation, cricothyrotomy and initial approach to hypoxia to explain his Simple Incremental Approach to EM Procedures. Could this be a paradigm shift in the way we think about procedures in EM?....

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