Introduction

Other aspects of preparation for intubation are detailed in the session on rapid sequence intubation and will not be covered here.

Learning Bite: Difficulty with an airway must be recognised early.

It is vital that the practitioner recognises when he or she is having problems and adopts an appropriate management strategy immediately. The temptation to struggle on without calling for assistance must be resisted.

The management strategy presented here is an abbreviated adaptation of that which is taught on the UK TEAM course. Other similar algorithms have been published in the emergency medicine literature and merit consideration [11].

Learning Bite: All airway practitioners must have a simple algorithm for the management of the difficult airway and ‘can’t intubate/can’t ventilate’ situations.