Week 1: Induction

Welcome to critical care! Spend this week settling in, finding your way around the department and hospital, and getting to grips with the guidelines and systems in critical care.

Things to do in your first week

• Mask fitting and COVID-19 risk assessments

• Figure out dates of formal teaching, both local and regional (if appropriate)

• Check your rota and request annual leave and study leave

• Make contact with your clinical and educational supervisors

• Work out what you're making on the cake rota :)

Guidelines and apps

Guidelines apps

• NUH - Use the NUH guidelines app

• UHL - Use Dr Toolbox

Antibiotics guidelines

Antibiotic guidelines for most of the hospitals in the East Midlands are downloaded via the RxGuidelines app:

• Download for iOS

• Download for Android

BNF

Although the paper BNF is widely available, and some the use of some drug infusions differ in critical care, the app is a useful source of information for dosing of most medications:

• Download for iOS

• Download for Android

Induction

Induction Switch is an app containing user generated phone numbers, contacts, and code that is often quicker than waiting on hold to get hold of a specialty or team:

• Download for iOS

• Download for Android

Want to find out more?

East Midlands resources

There's plenty of other information and teaching online from NUH and other hospitals in the region:

• The NUH critical care YouTube channel

• The Learn with NUH channel holds a lot of anaesthetics related material

• Dr Gardiner's own YouTube channel

• Dr Bonnington's CriticalCareTeaching.net

• Dr Harvey's CriticalInsight

• Critical Care Northampton

• The East Midlands School of Anaesthesia website links to useful resources

#FOAMEd

The critical care community is well known for providing #FOAMed - free, open-access, medical education. Great sources of information include:

• Life in the Fast Lane - based in Aus/NZ, LITFL covers pretty much any critical care topic you might want to know about

• The Internet Book of Critical Care - an online critical care text book being published chapter by chapter with corresponding podcasts

• The Bottom Line - a compendium of trials started in Wessex, analysed ready for presentation at journal club

• Critical Care Reviews - weekly overviews of all the literature in critical care, and in depth analyses of some big trials

• SAVEd anaesthesia and ICM tutorials - online lectures from the NW School fo Anaesthesia

• Anaesthetic Tutorial of the Week - short tutorials with a quiz and certificate at the end

• BJA Education - state of the art explanations of critical care topics, aimed predominantly at registrars preparing for exams

• WikiJournalClub's critical care pages

• e-SAFE's intensive care library

Get from the library

Non-free resources that can be checked out from the library include:

• The Beginner's Guide to Intensive Care Medicine - an easy to read overview of all things critical care
• Oxford Handbook of Critical Care - if you want to get into a bit more depth
• Emergencies in Critical Care - written by CCD legends Drs Beed and Sherman, a great quick reference guide to bad things that can happen in critical care

Have we missed something?

Know a great resource or teaching aid that we've missed? Let us know and help make this page even better.