The PicPod

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Claim

The PIVOTAL trial is the world’s first PIC specific Platform trial. It comes hot on the heels of some brilliant UK PIC research, like OxyPICU (PicPod77), and GASTRIC (not published yet, but will definitely have a PicPod soon!). It’s a platform which aims to reduce the life cycle of…

We were able to have a short conversation with Dr Mohammed Abed, director of the only functioning PICU in Gaza, at the Al Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. His dignity, pride, and incredible efforts in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe was incredibly humbling. He describes three cohorts of p…

PicPod 88 is all about Pertussis in Paediatric Critical Care. Malignant Pertussis is, for intensivists, one of the most terrible conditions to treat, with a dearth of evidence, and but plenty of evidence of death. For PicPod 88 we have spoken to James Cherry from UCLA. James Cherry is a medica…

We spoke to Juan Valle Ortiz from Newcastle, Consultant in Paediatric Intensive Care. He is involved in the PaNGEa project (www. pangeacambridge.co.uk), and is an ESPNIC ventilation instructor. He’s also a singer! What is non invasive ventilation? Does it work? What are the thresholds for…

Major traumatic brain injury is a huge issue for Paediatric Intensive Care. We have machines for almost every organ: but the brain is on its own. Shruti Agrawal, consultant in paediatric intensive care in Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, is first author on the Starship study, recently publish…

“Saving lives” is what we do. But at what cost? Are we threatening the survival of the world by our PIC practices? What’s the point of healthcare, if we are destroying the world’s future for those same children? We talked to Heather Baid, an ICU nurse and lead for susta…

Nudge nudge…. a favourite of politicians and social commentators, but how can nudge technology help us in ventilation weaning? Lisa McIlmurray has been working on a pilot study of nudge technology attached to a ventilator. How does this help to move patients on? What are the algorithms u…

Change is hard….isn’t it? We spoke to Rebecca Lawton, a professor of Psychology from the University of Leeds, who is an expert in patient safety; behaviour change; improvement science; workforce engagement and wellbeing. Why is change so difficult? Who is it most difficult for? And how do we co…

First, do no harm… How much of the things we do every day are worthwhile? We all do so many interventions, but are they actually worthwhile? Some may be ineffective, some inefficient, and some may be harmful. But which is which? How do we find out whether we should, or shouldn’t do …