Fundamentals of Paediatric Critical Care

This course will be delivered by a skilled faculty of national and international experts. It is appropriate for multi-professional candidates with clinical roles in acute paediatrics.

Delivery methods:

· Face to face lectures, seminars and tutorials

· Simulated clinical learning sessions

· Self-directed learning and literature review with distance learning support

This will include:

D1/D2:

· Organisation of UK Paediatric Critical Care (PCC) services including quality, benchmarking and service improvement

· Physiological basis for critical illness

· Advanced pharmacology: drug choices, indications and side effects

· Organ support on the paediatric critical care unit: the physiological need and physics of therapy

· Right line, right place, right time

· Planning care for children with complex multisystem disease

· Human factors in critical care environments and crew resource management

· Current ‘Hot Topics’ in evidence-based PCC

· End of life care

D3:

· Development of a functional multi-disciplinary team

· Assessment of the critically ill child

· Resuscitation and stabilisation of all common paediatric emergencies with hands on experience

· Practical aspects of critical care transport and transport triage

· Introduction to transport crew resource management

· Framework for debriefing clinical events

· Principles behind governance and safety, quality, benchmarking and service improvement when out in the field

· Introduction to aeronautical transport principles

D4:

· Basis of cardiac disease in children as an introduction to paediatric cardiology and cardiac intensive care to include embryology and physiology

· Paediatric heart failure management

· Congenital cardiac lesions, including the postnatal presentation and early management relevant to the general practitioner.

· Specific lesions to be covered will include left heart obstruction, mixing lesions, left to right shunt, right heart obstruction and patent ductus

· Introduction to the concepts and practice of cardiopulmonary bypass

· Arrhythmia management

· Ethics and future directions of cardiac intensive care medicine