I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday, one of my favorites. Thanksgiving comes without all the heavy expectations of other holidays, promising simply a good meal with important people in your life. The premise is also a good one – reflection on what we can be thankful for. Continue Reading…
Membership Committee Update
The SOCCA membership committee has been working to find new ways to reach out to the membership and solicit more feedback to continue to improve our society’s offerings. Continue Reading...
Communications Committee Update
The Communications Committee had a productive fall meeting – we met with our new members and brainstormed ideas to advance the committee's agenda. Given the increased social media engagement with video-based content, our team worked with the Women in Critical Care group to create the SOCCA Spotlight for WICC members. The video series highlights the challenges and satisfaction a career in critical care can bring for women. Please check out the videos on the WICC page here. Continue Reading...
Education Committee Update
As the New Year dawns upon us, the Education Committee would like to announce some exciting changes to the committee structure, as well as highlight some of the new offerings for the New Year. After the immensely successful integration of the SOCCA and IARS annual meetings in 2024, where we were able to incorporate three days’ worth of critical care content along with a POCUS workshop, we are happy to share that the same model will be in place for the 2025 Annual Meeting in Hawaii. Continue Reading...
Updates from the Physiologically Difficult Airway Task Force: Delphi Consensus Summary
In October of 2020, SOCCA formed a task force to champion the cause of physiologically difficult airway (PDA) management. As is familiar to critical care anesthesiologists, in the contemporary era of airway management the physiologic challenges posed by patients requiring tracheal intubation outside of the operating room with, for example, right ventricular failure, cardiovascular instability, or severe hypoxemia, often surpass the technical challenges associated with intubation itself. This clinical gestalt has been increasingly supported over time by large-scale observational studies, including INTUBE and INTUPROS. As an organization composed of experts in applied complex cardiopulmonary physiology, SOCCA and its membership were well-positioned to make substantive contributions. Continue Reading...
Does the 2024 Anesthesiology Critical Care Fellowship Match Reflect a Sustained Decline in Interest in Our Subspecialty? A Closer Examination of Historical Trends
As the 2024 fellowship match cycle draws to a close, critical care leaders and stakeholders face a concerning reality. Data from this year’s match once again highlight trends that mirror the previous cycle, with 36% of anesthesiology critical care fellowship positions going unfilled (Figure 1). This persistent gap raises an urgent question: does this pattern signal a sustained decline in interest in our subspecialty? Continue Reading...
Women in Critical Care (WICC) Update
We’re excited to introduce the new leadership team for the Women in Critical Care (WICC) group! First, we extend our heartfelt thanks to Drs. Siddiqui and Hua for their dedication in establishing and leading WICC. As we take up the mantle, we are eager to continue building on their efforts. Continue Reading...
Program Director Q&A
Sarah M. Alber, MD is a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist and intensivist in our cardiothoracic intensive care unit at the University of Colorado. I serve as the Program Director for our Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine (ACCM) Fellowship, and our innovative 5-year Combined Anesthesiology Residency and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship which fosters critical care education over the entire program and integrates fellowship training over the final 24 months of training. My non-clinical time focuses on fellow education in critical care, career development, and critical care focused transesophageal echocardiography. I am an active member of SOCCA, and serve on the SOCCA Women in Critical Care Steering Committee. Continue Reading...
Continuous Glucose Monitoring in the Perioperative Period
Substantial research has confirmed a critical link between perioperative glucose levels and perioperative complications including death.1-3 Hyperglycemia has been found to be the main culprit and affects 20-40% of postoperative patients and up to 80% of patients having cardiac surgery, though hypoglycemia is equally dangerous.1,2 Regardless of a preexisting diagnosis of diabetes mellitus (DM), higher glucose is an independent predictor of mortality for patients having cardiac surgery.4 In fact, a new diagnosis of hyperglycemia has been associated with three times higher mortality in ICU patients as compared to those with euglycemia or previously diagnosed diabetes.2 Further, an independent association has been identified between mortality and glycemic variability, regardless of mean glucose.5-7 Importantly, it has been shown that improved glucose control improves clinical outcomes and mortality in cardiac surgical patients.8 Continue Reading...
All the Red Herrings
68-year-old male with an incidentally found aortic aneurysm underwent a total arch repair with grafting of the innominate artery, left carotid, left subclavian artery, and a single vessel bypass grafting of the posterior descending artery. The patient had a past medical history of coronary artery disease, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hepatitis-B, chronic kidney disease stage 3a, and prostate cancer status post prostatectomy. Total cardiopulmonary bypass time (CPB) was 151 min, with an aortic cross-clamp time of 104 min and a deep hypothermic circulatory arrest time of 49 min. His pre-operative echocardiogram showed a dilated ascending aorta and normal biventricular function with 1+ tricuspid regurgitation. Post-CPB TEE right ventricular inflow image below after chest closure on 0.125 mcg/kg/min milrinone showed normal RV function. In a Doppler image, tricuspid regurgitation was graded 1-2+. Continue Reading...
Seraph® 100 Microbind® Affinity Blood Filter and Use in Group A Streptococcus Sepsis: A Case Report
The Seraph® 100 Microbind® Affinity Blood Filter (Seraph 100) is a single-use extracorporeal broad-spectrum sorbent hemoperfusion device authorized by FDA under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for multi-organ failure in COVID-19. According to recent studies, the filter has been shown to decrease morbidity, mortality, and intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay (LOS) in both adult and pediatric populations and has mainly been assessed for its efficacy in the management of COVID-19. Use of the Seraph 100 Microbind Affinity Blood Filter is only available under EUA. Here, we present a case of a 26-year-old female who developed septic shock and disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) secondary to Group A Streptococcus infection. Continue Reading...
2024 ASA House of Delegates Recap
Thank you for the opportunity to serve SOCCA as the alternate delegate to the ASA. This year’s meeting returned to Philadelphia for the first time since the 1960s and the City of Brotherly Love proved to be a great host city. The meeting was vibrant and energetic with over 12,700 people attending in person (including 1,200 international attendees) and an additional 500 virtual participants. Continue Reading...
