This page contains links to a series of presentations about ventilation and blood gases. They  are made from Power Point presentations that have sound added to them so they are best listened to using a computer with a sound card.  The presentations are designed for trainee medical staff, qualified nurses working in critical care and physiotherapists. The presentations start at quite a basic level but introduce some quite complex ideas as they go on.

They should best be watched in order starting with the lecture about blood gases, then ventilation basics then basics of a mechanical ventilator then CPAP and CPAP circuits and then the lectures about ARDS and air embolus.

You could listen to the lectures all the way through but the dialogue is quite slow because they are not rehearsed to a script. For this reason you could listen to part of a lecture and then come back to it another time and advance the sides to get back to where you left off. Some of the sides you can just advance to the next side if we don’t seem to be saying anything that you can’t just read.

The sides can also be used in tutorials with the sound turned off and the tutor talking.

In the basics of ventilation there is a question section that allows you to have a certificate, there is no assessment with the other presentations.

In the web site there is also a summary of the core knowledge required for these subjects for ICM and ACCS training.

We also plan to put some review papers on the web site about aspects of mechanical ventilation.

Clearly the most effective learning is in the work place- if you are unsure about things in the presentations ask about them on consultant ward rounds. The consultants are normally very happy to be asked questions by nursing medical or physiotherapy staff or anyone else-  it saves us having to think of something to say on the ward rounds.

In any case you should be linking your reading and private study to your clinical work- checking with colleagues that you understand what you have read and using your clinical work to identify areas that you should be reading about.

If you don’t like the presentations and think you could do better then do so and we will add your presentation to the web site, we are also very keen to add new topics so they would be welcome!

Any feedback please email us.