I’m excited to announce the publication of my new book Pediatric Airway Management: A Step-by-Step Guide, by Christine E. Whitten MD.
Quickly recognizing respiratory distress and managing the airway is critical in emergencies. Airway management includes more than intubation—skills like opening the airway, using oral and nasal airways, and bag-valve-mask ventilation are often essential. Effective teamwork and communication are crucial.
Case
Health care providers often equate emergency airway management with intubation. However, airway management is much more than that. One case of mine in particular stands out as a good example.
I arrived in the ICU to assist the intensivist after an intubation gone wrong. The airway had been lost. The intensivist was prepping to perform an emergency cricothyrotomy after failing to intubate a morbidly obese patient. Oxygen saturation was a critical 50% and dropping. The respiratory therapist was frantically smashing the mask down on the patient’s face, forcing the chin down over the chest, trying unsuccessfully to ventilate with bag-valve-mask.
Taking over ventilation attempts, I tilted the patient’s head back to open the airway, inserted an oral airway, and then reapplied the mask with a good seal. Immediately the chest began to rise with ventilation. Oxygen saturation quickly rose as well. Crisis averted, we avoided surgical cricothyrotomy. I got the video-laryngoscope and intubated the patient in a controlled manner.
The patient still needed intubation. However, what saved that patient from disaster was basic airway management skills:
- opening an airway,
- inserting an oral or a nasal airway,
- ventilating with bag-valve mask
- all of which require teamwork and communication
What You Will Learn
This book is designed to teach you that knowledge and those skills. It will give you practical information on mastering airway management: the things that you learn from experience, not just read from an instruction manual. Discussion divides each skill into basic steps, describing what the learner will experience in real life.
It explains the “why” behind each step, making it easier to master the material and the skills. The book features extensive drawings, photos, and links to video clips of real patients, simulations, and animations.
Anyone who only infrequently needs to rescue an airway will find this information especially helpful.
Note: this book emphasizes basic airway management. For more detailed discussion of intubation, physiology and pharmacology related to airway management, and advanced techniques see Anyone Can Intubate: A Step-by-Step Guide to Intubation and Airway Management, 5th Ed.
Topics:
- basic airway anatomy
- how to open the airway
- how to use basic equipment such as oral and nasal airways
- how to manually ventilate a patient with bag-valve-mask
- how to assist intubation, along with the basic steps of intubation
- use of the Laryngeal Mask Airway
- how to assess respiratory status and recognize airway obstruction
- complications
Why Is Basic Airway Management The Best Training Book?
- Written by Dr. Christine E. Whitten, an expert anesthesiologist and educator with over 40 years of experience.
- It’s practical. This textbook breaks down each skill into basic steps, describing exactly what the learner will experience in real life.
- It’s comprehensively illustrated with 244 drawingsand photos, with links to on-line videoclips of actual patients and animations.
- This content teaches essential airway management and intubation to all those who need foundational skills.
