Blog

The European Society of Intensive Care’s Annual Conference (LIVES) is typically held in destination cities across Europe, and when I saw that it was being held in Milan it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.  

I convinced one of my good registrar friends that us attending LIVES would be a good use of our time and our study budget...

Written by Dr Christopher Shaw

As the year draws to an end we thought we, as the members of The Women In Intensive Care Medicine committee, thought we would share some festive musings with you as our last blog of the year....

Written by Dr Jennifer Abthorpe, Dr Anna Stout, Dr Nish Desai, Dr Mishti Oberoi, Dr Aoife Quinn and Dr Liz Thomas

The Role of Critical Care Outreach Teams in Improving Care.

Over a decade ago a multi-collegiate working party produced the document “Providing equity of critical and maternity care for the critically ill pregnant or recently pregnant women” in an attempt to bring together the existing standards and recommendations for the care of women who became critically ill during their pregnancy or shortly after giving birth.

Written by Dr Cathy Challifour

Diversity and Inclusion

The Striking the Balance annual meeting is organised by the Women in ICM committee and aims to champion those none-clinical skills relating to human interactions that we use every day. Arguably these skills are more important and used more frequently than some of our more clinically based technical skills that we tend to focus on for our continuing professional development, as they form the basis for our interactions as a clinician...


Written by Dr Sarah Marsh

The background low level internal monologue that is common to many trainees is a familiar sound track; ‘The ICM trainee internal podcast’: ‘You can’t have it all, ‘How do I juggle my work life balance?’, ‘I’m a bad parent, mother, father, trainee’ ‘I’m not spending enough time at work vs I’m not spending enough time with my children/partner/family/friends’ ‘Will I get a consultant job?’, ‘Am I good enough?’ ‘imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome’ ...


Written by Dr Jeanie Worthington and Dr Inthu Kangesan

Threat or opportunity for academics?

As intensivists, we must always be striving to familiarise ourselves with the current literature. But what if the current literature is being written by an AI? Would we be able to tell? Would it matter?

Written by Dr James Harper

I’m Abi and I work as a Cardiac Physiologist. I had never heard of a cardiac physiologist during my time at school. As a teenager I travelled the world to pursue a career in the very niche sport of table tennis also known as ping pong, which meant my studies took a bit of a side line and consequently I didn’t have much in the way of a ‘traditional’ career path...

Written by Abigail Gowland

What makes a successful ward round ?

Critical Care is a complex setting, with complex teams, and complex patients. As a Critical Care Consultant, leading the ward round, we’re responsible for orchestrating efficient, effective and nuanced care for our patients. The team works together towards shared outcome goals for our patients. But how can we make sure we’re delivering a “good” ward round? What does that really mean?

Written by Dr Gilly Fleming

From Unicorns to Zebras and eventually Black Beauty.

The return of in person meetings and assessments has brought back the opportunity to network with colleagues. I recently had the opportunity capitalise on this and meet an exceptional group of women who are changing the narrative and challenging the historical view of the ICM Workforce...

Written by Dr Sekina Bakare

Medical education has changed massively in recent years in response to a wide variety of challenges. Initially established in aviation, simulation training, as an education tool in medicine, was first pioneered and developed in the field of anaesthesia. More than half a century later, the role of simulation in anaesthesia, emergency, and intensive care medicine has been well established...

Written by Dr Dave Melia and Dr Lina Grauslyte