Western Australian
The Royal Perth Hospital (RPH) airway group continues to provide airway education to anaesthesia trainees, critical care trainees, anaesthetic technicians and recovery staff, with involvement in developing teaching resources to meet the needs of these specific groups. Members have been involved in running CICO workshops at a number of meetings.
The RPH wet lab is a core component of ongoing airway training. The wet lab utilizes a live animal model to provide high-fidelity, hands-on CICO training. It runs 48 weeks per year and is available to be attended by anaesthetists, ICU and ED physicians, including those from interstate and overseas. Two airway fellows are primarily responsible for the organization of and teaching during the wet lab sessions with support from the airway faculty.
Airway faculty at Fiona Stanley Hospital have been involved in developing and running multidisciplinary tracheostomy crisis management workshops. The aim of these workshops is to educate a variety of hospital staff on how to manage a surgical airway crisis. Excellent feedback was received from all attendees and an abbreviated version will be run at the upcoming Western Australia airway group meeting.
In February, RPH ran the first of their regular CICO instructor courses for 2018. This is a two-day course for clinicians wishing to gain the credentials to teach percutaneous emergency oxygenation techniques for CICO management. The course was well attended by candidates from across Australia, New Zealand and beyond. Late last year a group from RPH were invited to Taiwan to run a series of CICO instructor courses for local anaesthetists. This was very successful and an invitation has been extended to run further training in Taiwan.
Fiona Stanley Hospital recently ran a departmental airway skills sessions where colleagues were able to refine their nasendoscopy skills on one another. Participants were also able to contend with a simulated soiled airway, driven by an enthusiastic simulation fellow and a pond pump.
Research remains a strength within the airway group. Apnoeic oxygenation has been a strong focus of previous airway fellow research, particularly the technique of buccal RAE tube oxygenation. A current study is looking at the physiological processes that underlie this technique. Additional projects include; investigating anatomical parameters that may be important in a CICO scenario, ongoing comparison of techniques used in percutaneous emergency oxygenation and a study evaluating a novel technique to aid definitive confirmation of endotracheal tube position.
