Have been asked for thoughts on the CICO course I attended last week (well, it was a rhetorical question* but no less valid for that). CICO – can\u2019t intubate, can\u2019t oxygenate – is the millennial version of can\u2019t intubate, can\u2019t ventilate. My surgeon has helpfully pointed out that if you can\u2019t intubate and you can\u2019t ventilate, then maybe anaesthesia isn\u2019t the career for you – but I think most of us can appreciate that we\u2019re referring to that extremely rare occurrence when no one would be able to do it on that particular patient at that time. It was an all day course, with the morning spent working on plastic models, and the afternoon in a wet lab at an undisclosed, secure location, on a live anaesthetised sheep. The location is secure to discourage animal rights activists from causing mayhem, even though many more sheep are dying, and much less humanely, in abattoirs around the country every \u00a0day. I guess potentially life saving teaching is less valuable than Shepherd\u2019s pie and lamb burgers. Let\u2019s face it, you don\u2019t see a lot of elderly sheep around. Not a big demand for ovine \u00a0retirement homes, methinks. (Actually the last time I did this course, our sheep escaped en route to the lab and they spent an hour chasing it through the streets of N*****n before they could catch it again. Lucky that didn\u2019t make the papers!).<\/p>\n
Practising our life saving techniques on a live animal was hugely different to doing it on a plastic model, and there\u2019s no question in my mind that you would be majorly handicapped in any attempt in a real emergency on a human being if you had never had this sort of teaching before. Having said that, it\u2019s not something any of us approached lightly. When the sheep was euthanized at the end, it was quite upsetting. I had to stop myself from saying \u201cwait wait! Don\u2019t do it! I\u2019ll take it home and look after it!\u201d. Because actually I can just imagine myself with a sheep in my backyard, looking woozy and with a large blood stained bandage round it\u2019s neck. Of course, it wasn\u2019t to be – it was too far gone and would have been unethical. Thank you for your sacrifice Mr Sheep.<\/p>\n
(*\u201dWhat is a rhetorical question?\u201d I ask myself.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have been asked for thoughts on the CICO course I attended last week<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sa8Ukf-sheepish","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":365,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/10\/reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":423,"position":0},"title":"Reading","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Just finished reading \u201cThe House of Silk\u201d by Anthony Horowitz. It\u2019s a Sherlock Holmes novel that the Doyle family estate commissioned the author to write, and he\u2019s done a very good job of it. Highly recommended. I managed to have figured \u00a0out about a third of what was going on\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8160,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/29\/old-scheduling-email-15-sept-2017\/","url_meta":{"origin":423,"position":1},"title":"Old scheduling email 15 Sept 2017","author":"Interloper11","date":"August 29, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Coming into the home straight! (Although I think I may have said that before\u2026) From: Kirsty Jordan Sent: Friday, 15 September 2017 5:01 p.m. To: Wellington Anaesthesia All Staff Subject: Bumper issue of this weeks explanatory email! (Derek (HOD): rumours of my imminent resignation have been greatly exaggerated...) 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