ICUedu is an educational podcast series focused on emergency critical care fundamentals, created and hosted by Dr. Sara Crager, an emergency physician and intensivist.
With clinical appointments at UCLA and Antelope Valley Medical Center, Sara brings a wealth of experience to the series, aiming to demystify complex critical care concepts through concise, high-yield discussions.
Suspected pulmonary embolism needs pre-test thinking before testing. MODS uses one gestalt question to choose D-dimer thresholds, treating D-dimer as a rule-out tool and helping reduce unnecessary CT pulmonary angiography when chest pain, dyspnoea, or syncope raise concern.
Decompensated aortic or mitral stenosis needs physiology-first decisions on preload, rhythm, and afterload. The practical point is that AF with rapid ventricular response or an incautious vasodilator can precipitate collapse in these fixed-output lesions.
Acute valve regurgitation can masquerade as septic shock yet worsen with standard fluids. Useful bedside teaching explains why forward flow depends on pressure gradients, when positive pressure helps or harms, and why dobutamine often fits acute aortic or mitral regurgitation.
Fixed 30 mL/kg sepsis resuscitation is challenged here with a stronger bedside question: is the patient fluid responsive and fluid tolerant? The practical point is to reassess early, track perfusion rather than protocol, and start norepinephrine sooner when extra volume will do harm.
Expert resuscitation is framed as deliberate practice, not mere repetition. Worth opening for a practical way to build mental models, rehearse difficult cases, and move beyond checklist thinking when cardiac arrest, sepsis, or trauma compete for attention on the same shift.
Electrical storm is treated as more than recurrent shocks on a monitor. The teaching value is the emphasis on sympathetic control: deep analgesia and anxiolysis, antiarrhythmics, pacing when needed, and beta blockade even when hypotension makes clinicians hesitate.
How to recognise and manage physiologically difficult airways: trajectory, timing, and tailored resuscitation. Key teaching point: Don't mistake GCS for airway protection.
Distinguishing sick but normotensive vs hypotensive but stable patients, and how to manage shock beyond blood pressure. Key teaching point: Shock index >0.9 predicts instability even in normotension.
Advanced clinical reasoning tools to move beyond ABCDE checklists and practice expert-level hypothesis testing. Key teaching point: Use the '3 questions, 3 exam findings' mental model to prioritise.
Uses physiology-first reasoning to interpret bedside echo findings like IVC size, LV function, and B-lines. Key teaching point: Septal flattening = RV strain.
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