Mechanical Ventilation - Thinking Simple using Waveforms!

This course approaches mechanical ventilation through the idea that if you can't explain something simply, you don't really understand it. Instead of teaching complex concepts and physics, mechanical ventilation is broken down into breaths - and believe it or not, there are really only 2. 5 breaths that exist in mechanical ventilation (with some exquisitely rare exceptions).

The course begins with a review of the breaths, then delves into these breaths fluently so the learner understands how the ventilator and patient interact. From here, we revisit to improve knowledge while adding key considerations for each type of breath. After ventilator breaths are fully understood, we put them together in Ventilator Modes, and we review optimal PEEP settings, and how to do an optimal PEEP challenge.

Additional content includes a discussion and approach to airway pressure release ventilation and blood gas interpretation. This is a comprehensive course was originally created during COVID as a way to teach non-ICU clinicians how to mechanically ventilate these patients safely, and in a simple enough way to be able to reference quickly during a COVID wave. It is now taught at a quaternary care hospital as part of a standard repeating lecture series to all critical care physicians, trainees, anesthesiology residents and the respiratory therapists.

After reviewing the learner will be able to understand the ventilators they see in front of them, and recognize how and why a patient may be struggling with their breathing. Advanced concepts will be much, much easier with this framework and approach.