From the President

I would like to begin this message by sending my deepest condolences and sympathies to all our friends and colleagues who have been and are currently being affected by natural disasters around the world. The people of Christchurch who have started the rebuilding process and have a long way to go, you are in our thoughts. To Japan who haven‘t even had time to survey the damage or grasp the extent of loss of life, our hearts reach out to you. Times like this remind each and every one of us what is important in our lives.

The College has now entered its second year and we are running a successful independent College. In February the Board held its first meeting of 2011 and many issues were addressed and discussed. It was a historical Board meeting, as we welcomed first ever Trainee Representative, Miles Beeny. The Board are moving forward and wish to embrace change and learn from the younger generation of Trainees and Fellows.

The AMC Accreditation process continues for the College and our written submission has been sent to the Council. An accreditation team is being finalized and towards the end of June, this team will travel to several training centres around the country and talk to Trainees, Fellows, SOT‘s,  Board Members and College staff. 

New initiatives have begun with a College run Communications Course aimed at Trainees and more regular SOT Workshops. We are working on a new CPD program to replace the current MOPS program and this is progressing extremely well.

One of our jewels in the crown is the College ASM and already this year we have had record sponsorship. With world class speakers and a program of the highest quality, this years ASM is sure to be a great success, so please you get your registration in as soon as possible.

After two successful surveys, the Workforce  Survey and Trainee Survey, the results are currently being collated and anaylsed, with reports to be published both on the website and in the Critical Care and Resuscitation Journal.

I would like to thank the Board and all Committees of the College for their continuous hard work and dedication.

Prof John Myburgh

From the Office

Welcome to the March edition of the e-news.

When I first began writing this welcome note, I acknowlegded the traumas that have befollowen those in flood and fire ravaged areas of Australia as well as our friends in Christchurch who have been so tragically affected by a massive earthquake. Now as I get ready to send this out, our thoughts are also with those in Japan who are suffering terrible losses from an earthquake and a tsunami. 

We are working on making the e-news not just informative, but an enjoyable read as well. If you have a story about an aid trip you have recently been on or a colleague who has gone above and beyond in their every day work, we would like to hear about it.

Please email me, Lisa Davidson, with story ideas or items you would like included.

Christchurch

The Christchurch Earthquake 
Geoff Shaw, Intensivist, Christchurch Hospital

The ICU staff at Christchurch Hospital would like to extend their gratitude to the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Communities for their help and support after the 6.3M earthquake that rocked Christchurch on 22nd February. Following the 7.1M shake on 4th September last year, there have been about 5000 after-shocks; however no-one anticipated half of the combined energy from all these aftershocks would be released as one short, sharp and violent shake a few kilometres beneath our feet three weeks ago.

In the first 24 hours our Intensive Care Unit received 17 traumas, of which 11 were flown to other Intensive Care Units in Auckland, Waikato, Hawkes Bay and Wellington.  Additionally three non-earthquake-trauma related patients were also transferred to reduce the load on our services in preparation for an expected influx of crush injury victims.  Sadly, however, no one was rescued beyond the first day. On the day of the quake our Hospital and ICU briefly lost all power and water; fortunately gas supplies were intact.  The only lighting was from head lamps (acquired following the September quake) and the LED screens of the ventilators on back up power. No monitoring created a demand for hand-held sphygmomanometers and even a medical student to continuously monitor the femoral pulse in a haemodynamically unstable patient!  Fortunately no medical students were required to hand ventilate patients. After some tense moments power was finally restored before the ventilator‘s back up would have also failed, thanks to the skilled work of our electrical engineers.

We have all reflected on how much we take our homes, clean water, power and sewerage for granted. Several of our registrars and nursing staff have lost homes and are still ‘camping‘ on living room floors of friends and colleagues.  At this time half the city is still without sewerage and everyone is still boiling drinking water.

The team spirits in our ICU, hospital and community were fantastic and, in the end, this is what got us through. The real challenge will be the next twelve months: just getting to work some days is a major accomplishment; our roads are broken and gridlocked and both car parks are "red-stickered".  Meanwhile our hospital has lost over one hundred medical beds and its infrastructure remains very fragile. The task ahead is formidable: restoring sewerage to 200,000 people, rebuilding or relocating 20,000 homes and most of the CBD.  Reconstruction costs and economic loss are estimated as high as $45 billion.

Up to 200 lives are believed to have been lost, and in a town of 400,000, where no one is more than one or two degrees of separation from anyone else, this tragedy has touched everyone. None of our Intensive Care staff were injured or killed in the quake, however the mental stress and disruption to our daily activities, homes and city‘s infra-structure has taken its toll. This quake has given many of us new perspectives on our own lives, work and families.  It is also A salient wake-up call as to how we must plan for and manage the next natural disaster.

Finally our hearts go out to those affected by the recent 9.0M quake in Japan; we can only just begin to comprehend the scale of suffering, loss and destruction.

ASM 2011

 EARLY BIRD REGISTRATIONS CLOSING 26 MARCH

Visit the ASM website and download the Registration Brochure with all the latest news, international & national speakers, registration fees, entitlements and full program details:  http://www.cicm-asm.org.au.

Important Dates:
Abstract Submissions Close: 18th March

Early Bird Registrations Close: 26th March

The College would like to thank the following sponsors for their continual support:

Platinum Sponsors

Edwards Lifescience                  ACT Health                    Phillips Healthcare

Monograph Book Sponsor

GE Healthcare

ASM Handbook Sponsor

Thermofisher

Clinical Update

Immediately before our ASM this year, the College will be running a one-day Intensive Care Medicine Update, a course which is a new initiative principally aimed at CICM Fellows.

The course will cover the latest developments in intensive care practice from experts in various clinical areas, including Cardiothoracic, Respiratory, Renal, Neurological, Endocrine and Metabolic, and Infectious Diseases. The course will be a mix of lecture style presentations and hands-on workshops.    This is expected to be an annual event to be run the day before the CICM Annual Scientific Meeting. Further information on the course and the registration form is available here.   

SOT Workshop

The College is running a Supervisor of Training workshop on Thursday 14th April 2011 in Sydney at the Medina Executive Hotel. Based on feedback the College received from SOTs last year, this workshop will specifically target topics to address the various challenges of supervising and teaching Trainees.

Workshop content will be provided by Dr Bronwyn Avard, Intenvist at Canberra Hospital and Dr Liz Molloy, Medical Educator at Monash University.

Topics include:
Feedback for Learning:
- What is Best Practice?
- How Conceptual Feedback Models can be helpful, and why they collapse under authentic loading in clinical practice.

Identification and Remediation of the Poorly Performing Learner:
-The tendency for Supervisors in "Failing to Fail"
- When to refer a Trainee to the College or another educator/environment

Facilitating Clinical Reasoning in the Trainee:
-Analytical vs. Intuitive Thinking
-Cognitive bias
- The problem with self-reporting of reasoning vs direct supervision

Registrations are now open for this workshop at: http://www.cicm.org.au/trainsot.php

This workshop is open to all current SOTs and those interested in becoming a Supervisor.

If you have any queries regarding the workshop or registration, please contact Laura Fernandez-Low at the College office.

Comms Course

The College is running a one-day Communication Skills Course for Trainees at the Medina Executive Hotel in Sydney on Friday 15 April.

The course is intended to compliment and build on the communication aspects of the ADAPT course. Some of the areas to be covered include: breaking bad and catastrophic news; open disclosure; advance care planning and end of life treatment choices.

We intend that the course will be offered several times each year in the future and will be recommending that all Trainees attend. Numbers are limited so we encourage you to register now. The flyer and registration form are available here.

NFC

The 2011 New Fellows‘ Conference will be held from 31 May to 2 June in Canberra.

Letters inviting Fellows to register have been sent out to all eligible Fellows, that is those within 3 years of Fellowship.  We encourage you to apply ASAP to secure a spot as places are limited to 2 Fellows from each region.

For more information you can contact Laura Fernandez-Low at the office via 03 9514 2888.

Fellow Subscriptions

The majority of 2011 subscriptions have now been received however if you have not yet paid we ask that you do so as soon as possible.

If you did not receive a subscription letter, please contact the office so we can check your contact details.

CPD Project

The CPD Team have come a long way with the new CPD Program that will replace the current MOPS Program. The Board has approved the new framework and point system and the online diary is in the early stages of development.

Our aim is to make the new CPD online diary is easy to use and simple, while ensuring that the educational goals of Fellows are met. The new cycle will be a 2 year cycle and will begin in January 2012.

The online system will go through rigorous testing in the second half of this year. If you are a Fellow and would like to be involved in the testing stage, please email Lisa Davidson.

CICM / ACEM Trainees

Dual trainees are advised to contact the College if your training status with ACEM has changed since your initial registration with JFICM or CICM.

If a trainee decides to withdraw from the ACEM training program this may impact your CICM training requirements, in particular the Internal Medicine component.
  Please contact the Training Department to discuss your training status.

AVT

All AVT forms are now to be completed online through the members portal, within three months of the commencement of your training position. If you do not have your login details, please contact the College.

Also, trainees are advised to submit an AVT even if the time is additional or not required to be accredited towards CICM training.

Primary Syllabus

This year the Syllabus for the Basic Sciences in Intensive Care Medicine will undergo a scheduled review. This is a significant undertaking in the ongoing development and enhancement of the CICM Primary Examination.

The current Syllabus (T-04) and a working document on the new Syllabus are now on the website. On behalf of the CICM Primary Examination Committee, we would like to invite all Fellows to make suggestions towards this review.

Email: Arthas.Flabouris@health.sa.gov.au. or contact the CICM Office by Monday 4th April. All submissions will be considered at a syllabus workshop to be held on 5th and 6th April 2011.

Rural Committee

Both CICM and ANZICS have focused their attention to rural and regional intensive care matters through the conduit of the Conjoint Rural Committee (CRC).

Since its establishment the CRC has, due to a combination of factors, suffered a relative loss of focus, impetus and achievement and has been unable to successfully engage with practitioners working in these areas.

A re-vamp of the Conjoint Rural Committee is required, in order to invigorate and re-energise rural and regional affairs. Perhaps a conjoint committee may not the best way to deal with rural intensive care issues. One possibility to consider is shifting CICM focus to one of primarily educational support, including accreditation and training matters.

The College is mindful that many rural Units remain heavily dependant upon Specialists who are not Fellows of CICM. and recognises the importance of providing appropriate support to both our Fellows and also non-FCICMs  delivering rural and regional intensive care services. Accordingly it is crucial that any emergent committee is able to reach, engage and support this diverse group of practitioners.
Expressions of interest are sought from both Fellows and non-Fellows who wish to become involved in a re-structured CICM Rural and Regional Special Interest Group. Please contact either:

Dr. Mike Anderson, Rural Focus Officer, CICM Board: mike.anderson@dhhs.tas.gov.au

Or: Stephanie Gershon, CICM :
StephG@cicm.org.au

RHCE Grant

The College has been awarded a grant through the RHCE program to run an ultrasound and echocardiography training program through the Intensive Care Unit at the Alice Springs hospital. The project leader, Dr Penny Stewart, is the Director of Intensive Care in Alice Springs.

This project has been funded by the Department of Health and Ageing under the Rural Health Continuing Education Sub-program (RHCE) Stream One which is managed by the Committee of Presidents of Medical Colleges. Further information about the RHCE program is available at www.ruralspecialist.org.au.  

Facebook

The College Facebook page is up and running and our friends list is growing! Get online and search for us on Facebook: College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand .

Online Forums

The Online Discussion Forums are GO!!

New threads have started including one for the Primary Examination.

Get online and join the discussion.

Trainee Survey

A survey was sent to all Trainees at the beginning of the year canvassing a range of issues including SOTs, College communication, the training program and provision of educational resources.

The response rate was very pleasing with over 230 people participating. Liz Steel, Chair of the Trainee Committee and New Fellows Representative on the Board, will collate and analyse the responses and a paper will be published on the website and in Critical Care and Resuscitation.

The College will continue the process of engagement with the Trainees to ascertain the pertinent issues that need attention.

Online Receipts

The College has added a new feature to the Members Portal. Fellows and Trainees can now go online and print out receipts for CICM subscriptions and training fees.

Previous fees paid to JFICM are not available electronically, however if you contact the office one can be arranged.

Go to the Members Portal to see this new feature.

Events & Courses

ICM-2011: ANZICS Intensive Care Medicine Course & 
CCCC - Clinical Challenges in Critical Care
Melbourne; 14 to 17 July 2011   http://www.easternhealth.org.au/media/events/icm.aspx



The Alfred Intensive Care Events Program

www.alfredicu.org.au/courses