As prepared by Trent Hartshorne, here are the practice written questions from this week’s CICM Second Part exam practice session at The Alfred ICU, with recommended reading from LITF.com’s Critical Care Compendium and other FOAM sources:
Q1.
A 48 year-old lady presents with 24 hours of increasing shortness of breath on a background history of poorly controlled asthma. On arrival to ED, she has widespread expiratory wheeze with a respiratory rate is 36/min, BP 110/60 and heart rate of 130/min. Her initial ABG shows a pH of 7.08 and pCO2 of 70 mmHg. The ED registrar gives her a salbutamol neb with minimal improvement, and then intubates the patient. On arrival her blood pressure is 85/55 mmHg.
- Outline your approach to mechanical ventilation in this patient
- What are the complications of invasive ventilation specific to asthma?
Learn more here:
https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/acute-severe-asthma/
https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/non-invasive-ventilation-niv-and-asthma/
Q2.
Regarding right ventricular failure:
- What are the causes of acute RV failure?
- What are the echo features of reduced RV function?
- Describe your approach to management of acute RV failure in the intubated adult ICU patient.
Learn more here:
https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/right-ventricular-failure/
https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/right-ventricular-function-and-haemodynamic-assessment-echocardiography/
Q3.
Outline the important factors involved in conducting a successful family meeting in intensive care.
Learn more here:
https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/end-of-life-care-family-meeting/
You can access all the previous practice questions since 2014 here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Ta8IvVaVtc5Il7-kJwj6qKGu54OmifJGRUWCXud8dY/edit
See this link on INTENSIVE for exam resources:
https://intensiveblog.com/resources/#3