Stuff that saves people is cool. We can all accept that. The things that really save people, though, are usually not what we expect. Helicopter transport, hypothermia with a cool machine that self-regulates, ICU care, monitors that beep and whistle, recombinant clotting factors that cost more than an SUV per ounce, those save people, right?
Um, maybe; but things that actually do are often eerily simple. Good chest compressions. Needles in the mid-clavicular line. And airway management--with a mask and a chin lift.
Terrifyingly recently, anesthesiologists would do a suprising number of cases without intubation and without a machine, just bagging the patient with an ambu bag. You breathe for the patient, literally.
On peds anesthesia this week, the best cases were the ear tubes, becuase for five minutes or so it'd just be me and the bag and the patient not breathing. This skill, as much as intubation, saves lives. Just a bag. No big fiber-optic scope, no fancy stainless steel LED-lit laryngoscope or, as my trauma surgeon called it, 'dog and pony show'.
It's all well and good to talk about lifting the jaw up into the mask with your pinkie, ring and middle finger spread from behind the jaw to the chin, but like any motor memory task, it takes time to learn it. Once you do, there's no feeling like holding the jaw up, squeezing the bag, and watching that little chest rise just enough to avoid inflating the stomach while still giving them oxygen. And to think we walk around normally breathing without even thinking about it. Want to manage a person's airway? Learn to bag. Don't know what to do with a failed airway? Learn to bag. Save a life.
/sermon.
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