An intensivist on a learning frenzy. Caring for the critically ill using evidence-based medicine.
Is red meat actually bad for us?Recently I was at a friends house for dinner.He was told by his physician to cut down on eating red meat.Note that this is a healthy dude in his 30's who was a college athlete.This really upset me as it seemed like the physician likely also promotes the original …
We are all looking for strategies to improve outcomes in our critically ill patients. Could probiotics come to the rescue to help out patients in the ICU? This is a work-in-progress post, like the vast majority of my work. Here's something I'm fairly certain we (meaning your team and mine) do not do in our …
In this post which will be updated continuously, I will be examining the clinical questions regarding ICU nutrition. These data do not apply to the non-ICU patients. The first thing that we need to acknowledge is that nutrition in the critically ill is not one size fits all nor set it and forget it in …
Continue reading Nutrition in the Critically Ill/Intensive Care Unit (ICU)
We can always count on the ASPEN team to come through for us regarding nutritional recommendations for our patients with COVID-19. A hat tip to them. A hat tip also to my pharmacist teammate, Amanda, for sending this to me (and many other literature goodies). This is free so download your own copy and don't …
Continue reading Nutrition in the Critically Ill with COVID-19 Infection
Do you as a nurse spend any part of your day checking for residual tube feeds on your patients who are on mechanical ventilation and receiving tube feeds/enteral feeding? Did you know that since 2016, the ASPEN guidelines have recommended against this? Now may be your opportunity to present this data to the powers that …
Continue reading Don’t always check Residuals on Mechanically Ventilated Patients
These are the ASPEN guidelines on enteral nutrition that were published in 2016. They were created to assist us in providing patients with appropriate enteral nutrition while they recover from critical illness. This paper is free and although the 53 pages seem intimidating, the last 11 pages are the references. Also, the font is large …
Continue reading ASPEN Guidelines on Enteral nutrition in the ICU