Topic module

Critical Care and Organ Support

Respiratory, cardiovascular, renal and neurological support, sepsis, nutrition, escalation and critical-care complications.

Long-form learning

Concept to Risk to Memory to Check-up

Protect breadth for the 90 SBA paper, then rehearse concise CRQ answers that follow the command, mark allocation and printed answer lines.

Core concepts

Concept 1

Critical-care reasoning moves repeatedly through immediate stabilisation, syndrome definition, cause, organ support, response and revised goals.

Exam cue: Treat life-threatening physiology while obtaining focused evidence for the cause.

Concept 2

Each support modality has an indication, physiological target, complications, monitoring requirements and criteria for escalation or liberation.

Exam cue: For every organ support choice, state the target, measure of response and harm being watched.

Risk pitfalls and guardrails

Using a protocol endpoint without checking perfusion, trajectory and the individual context.

Guardrail: Use the current authoritative guidance for the sitting and explain how it applies to this patient.

Adding organ support without reviewing reversibility, burdens and agreed ceilings of treatment.

Guardrail: Answer the exact lead-in or command instead of reproducing a generic essay.

Memory anchors

What is the critical-care reasoning cycle?

Stabilise, identify syndrome and likely cause, investigate, support organs, treat cause, reassess and communicate goals.

What makes ventilation protective?

A strategy matched to lung mechanics and gas-exchange goals while limiting excessive volume, pressure, oxygen and patient–ventilator injury.

What guides haemodynamic support?

The dominant problem in volume, vascular tone, pump function or rhythm, assessed through perfusion and response rather than pressure alone.

When should organ support be reviewed?

Continuously for efficacy and harm, and formally for escalation, weaning, reversibility and consistency with goals of care.

What belongs in an ICU handover?

Diagnosis and uncertainty, trajectory, supports, access, medicines, pending results, complications, goals, ceilings and immediate tasks.

Checkpoint rule

Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.

Knowledge Check (after reading)

Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.

1-2 question checkpoint

A ventilated patient with ARDS has a predicted body weight of 60 kg. Which tidal volume is most consistent with lung-protective ventilation?

A patient with ARDS remains severely hypoxaemic despite lung-protective ventilation. Which intervention has evidence in appropriate severe cases?

Answer all questions to submit.

Next step personalized recommendations

Move forward only after this module is stable.

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