NCS Roundup

I hope you are reading this letter in a relaxed environment, a beach, a resort, or at the airport waiting to board for a family vacation far away. I also hope unlike me last week, reading on quarantine, because I got Covid! Yes, indeed, I didn’t get it at its peak in 2020 nor 2021, and not even this winter. I wonder what I did wrong because I did not let down my defenses: I wore masks, washed my hands, used a paper towel when opening doors, and wiped my cellphone. My easy, anecdotal conclusion is this strain of the virus is more transmissible. It felt ...

Brooke Barlow, PharmD ( @TheABofPharmC ); Eric C. Lawson, MD ( @EricLawson90 ) #NCSTJC Moderators : @drdangayach @tchaaban1 Authors: @SWahlster @cj_creutzfeldt @jgranstein #NCSTJC Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/i/events/1526241410856402944?s=20 Welcome to the #NCSTJC Round-up! May’s NCS Twitter Journal Club featured a lively discussion on the article, “Taking a Chance to Recover: Families Look Back on the Decision to Pursue Tracheostomy in Severe Brain Injury” by William Lou et al published in Neurocritical Care ...

As I am writing these lines, June is not over. But, I am in a hurry to write this letter on this sunny and windy Sunday’s evening, because tomorrow I start a 7-day straight NEURO-ICU service. And I don’t foresee I will have time for anything else. The last time I was in the NEURO-ICU, it was in the end of May and it was busy. I estimate that in a week I spent 93 hours in the hospital and probably more than 85 hours in the NEURO-ICU managing patients. You may immediately say “that is excessive, especially when trainees are not allowed to spend 80 hours/week ...

Colleagues: The Neurocritical Care Society Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Mindy Saraco has been named the new executive director for the organization. In her role, Mindy will lead the organization’s headquarters staff operations and will be responsible for the implementation of NCS’ strategic priorities. In addition, Mindy appreciates our high expectations of service excellence, organization, and staff accountability. This is an exciting time of growth for NCS that requires strong leadership. Over the last three months, the NCS ...

Lauren Koffman, DO, MS As a member of the Educational Products Committee, one of many committees within the Neurocritical Care Society, I was recently asked to review A Guide to Traumatic Brain Injury: The Intensive Care Unit . This guide was written several years ago by Dr. David Y. Hwang and Dayla Maisey. Dayla narrates the book, providing a firsthand experience of what family members can expect to see, hear and discuss when they have a loved one admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with a brain injury. After reviewing the guide I could ...

Jenna Gonillo Davis, MS, ACNPC-AG, CCRN Angie Murkins, FNP-BC Ana Kukulj, FNP-C, MSN, BSN, RN Advanced practice providers (APPs) have become the ever-present providers in critical care departments. They act as a stabilizing force for intensive care units (ICU) where residents and fellows rotate and may not have the same level of interest in critical care as a prospective intensivist. The consistent presence of APPs makes the integration, advancement, and education of APPs essential to maintain a highly functional ICU. With ...

Nicolas Chiriboga, MD (@NChiriboga); Eric C. Lawson, MD (@EricLawson90) Moderator: @EricLawson90 Authors: @RebeccaJLevyMD, @ewmayne Link to Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/neurocritical/status/1513880138328457228?s=21&t=gpKicZn6wmBOKzVi2UCg4Q April’s NCS Twitter Journal Club featured a lively discussion of the article Seizure Risk in Infants After Bypass Without Hypothermic Arrest by Rebecca Levy et al . This was a single-center, observational cohort study that aimed to characterize the risk of seizures ...

Have you planned for your summer vacations? Well, some will say “we prefer snow skiing in the winter”, but I bet that most of you will take some days off to visit a beach, a lake, have a boat-trip. A summer vacation. NCS does not take vacations. It was a busy month for the Society, and June will be similar. There have been new developments on several fronts: NCS has collaborated with our management partner, Smithbucklin, on the pathway to identify our new Executive Director. We have already started the process of interviewing candidates and we will ...

By Panayiotis (Panos) N. Varelas, MD, PhD, FAAN, FNCS May has arrived and even in Upstate New York, nature is changing fast, few days after the last (maybe?) snow. There are already little buds in the trees and even some flowers. Everything is changing, with eternal cycles that repeat themselves, but also with changes that in our lifetimes do not repeat themselves and to our eyes seem dramatically new. Climate change may be one that I witness in my lifetime. Changes happen in a Society like ours, which behaves like a living and thriving organism. ...

Brianna Burlock, MD, MPH; Eric C. Lawson, MD ( @EricLawson90 ) Moderator: @gdomeni Authors: @GreerWaldrop, @sas_mdphd , @MeganRx1 Link to Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/neurocritical/status/1503728992792231940?s=21 March’s Twitter journal club, done in conjunction with the Curing Coma Campaign ( @CuringComa ) and American Neurological Association ( @TheNewANA1 ), featured a discussion on the article, “Prolonged unconsciousness is common in COVID-19 and associated with hypoxemia” by Greer Waldrop et al. This was ...

By Panayiotis (Panos) N. Varelas, MD, PhD, FAAN, FNCS Yes, There is Hope We are in April and nature is slowly waking up from its white hibernation in the northern states. As I was writing this, I could not restrain myself from drawing a parallel with a major achievement of NCS, the second annual World Coma Day, which just occurred. I hope many of you joined us for the full day of content, but even the few hours of connecting were eye-opening for many of us. Even for providers who work in neuro-ICUs and encounter comatose patients every day, ...

Eric C. Lawson, MD; Karen Berger, PharmD Moderator: @karenccrx Authors: @sa_saldana1 ; @pharmer_mikerx Full Twitter Thread : https://twitter.com/neurocritical/status/1485992755977457665?s=21 January’s Twitter Journal Club featured a discussion on the article, Comparison of Clevidipine and Nicardipine for Acute Blood Pressure Reduction in Hemorrhagic Stroke by Sara Saldana et al. This study was a single-center retrospective observational cohort study with a primary outcome of time to goal systolic blood pressure. Secondary outcomes ...

By Panayiotis (Panos) N. Varelas, MD, PhD, FAAN, FNCS A Focus on Spring As we are moving towards the Ides of March, there is a glimpse of hope that this gloomy day of yore, immortalized as a deadly warning in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, may not be as bad this year. Even though the pandemic is still here and still affects patients we treat daily in our ICUs, the most recent data seemingly show we are heading towards weathering the storm. Is it going to go away and disappear like a bad dream or linger at a low endemic level, waiting ...

By Panayiotis (Panos) N. Varelas, MD, PhD, FAAN, FNCS Planning for the Future While Staying Safe As we are heading towards February, the world here in Albany and for many colleagues up north, is a snowy white world and a world of scarcity. Behind the windows I was looking at the birds and squirrels next to each other devouring the seeds that my wife and I have thrown out in our snow-filled yard of 2 below zero Fahrenheit. These little creatures survive the harsh winter as we, in a warmer enclosure, survive the letters of the Greek Alphabet: ...

By Panayiotis (Panos) N. Varelas, MD, PhD, FAAN, FNCS Looking Ahead to a New Year As we leave behind a remarkable year and 2022 reaches our shores, I have started thinking — what should we continue and what should we change in this new year The easy answer is, of course, that we would like to get rid of COVID and return to normalcy. Easier said than done. But we are heading toward that direction with more people having access to vaccination and deciding to explore it. At the same time, we see surges of cases in our hospitals, but the patients ...

By Panayiotis (Panos) N. Varelas, MD, PhD, FAAN, FNCS Reflecting on 2021: A Year of Celebration and Success for NCS Dear NCS Members, Well, we did it! We hosted the first hybrid Annual Meeting in Chicago, with more than 700 in-person attendees and another 600 joining us virtually. How did it feel? Everyone I’ve asked said it was “so much better to see each other three-dimensionally!” Despite the fear of COVID and the new normal of wireless interactions these days, we are still social animals. We need to interact with real people, even without ...

By Panayiotis (Panos) N. Varelas, MD, PhD, FAAN, FNCS A Stronger, Better NCS Dear NCS Members, As your 14th President, I want to look at the past accomplishments of the Society. It was not so long ago in that inaugural meeting in Phoenix that the Society took a bones-and-flesh form. I still vividly remember going out in the open hotel terrace and talking to this small group of not more than 200 people about what we envisioned for NCS. I remember the excitement! Since then, a lot of water has run down the river: the Society has grown to more ...

“Stories of Hope” is a popular column on the Neurocritical Care Society’s Currents content center. This series has been uplifting patients and providers alike since its founding. To support NCS’s Curing Coma ® initiative, which aims to develop and implement coma treatment strategies that improve human lives, we invite you to share your stories. We are seeking submissions for your "Stories of Hope" that specifically showcase inspiring stories related to coma, stroke or TBI. We hope to use these experiences to create stories and profiles to ...

Hana Nobleza, Marin Darsie, H.E. Hinson, Deepa Malaiyandi, and Diana Greene-Chandos The past year has been hard for all of us. Our resilience, commitment and passion to our patients, and profession have been put to the test. Despite the challenge that the year brought, the Inclusion in Neurocritical Care Committee (INCC), section and its members have been working to uphold the NCS commitment to enhancing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within the society.   With that said, we wanted to share the upcoming INCC and INCC-related events taking ...

The Neurocritical Care Society is excited to launch the 2021 issue of Currents , featuring a compilation of articles published on Currents over the past year. This special annual issue highlights themes of adapting our life, and our practice, to our ever-changing world. Download your copy to read stories of navigating the ongoing pandemic, the commitment to diversity and inclusion, the business of neurocritical care, the popular "Stories of Hope" and more. Currents  highlights innovative ideas and perspectives from multidisciplinary neurocritical ...

By Wade Smith, MD, PhD, FNCS A 'See You Soon' and a 'Farewell' Dear NCS Members, As I write my final message as NCS President, I’m looking forward to connecting with you all at the NCS 19th Annual Meeting — in both our Chicago and virtual venues. On behalf of the Board of Directors and Annual Meeting Committee, I am pleased to share that NCS will be moving forward with our Annual Meeting as planned, with both in-person and virtual participation options. Offering two ways to attend is a fantastic opportunity to reconnect personally and professionally ...

Co-Chairs of the Member Sites Module Chethan Venkatasubba Rao, MD, FNCS cprao@bcm.edu Briana Witherspoon, DNP, APRN, ACNP Briana.Witherspoon@UTSouthwestern.edu Curing Coma®  is the signature clinical, scientific, and public health effort of the Neurocritical Care Society. Curing Coma is comprised of several modules, all of which share the common goal of advancing the campaign’s mission (1, 2). The role of the Member Sites module is to create and maintain a platform that engages and facilitates multidisciplinary participation from ...

By: Kelly A. Rath and Diane C. McLaughlin On Behalf of the NCS APP Leadership Section “The brain is the organ of destiny. It holds within its humming mechanism secrets that will determine the future of the human race.” Wilder Penfield, Neurosurgeon   Despite historically considered “born” in the beginning of the 20 th century, and many reports of early neurosurgery being performed centuries before that, neurocritical care itself is a relatively new specialty.  The Neurocritical Care Society was founded in 2002, with the field being recognized as ...

By Shweta Goswami, MD; Eunice J Lee, MD; Rachael Scott, PharmD, BCCCP; Naomi Niznick, MD; Sasha Yakhkind, MD; Pouya Ameli, MD, MS; and Marc Babi, MD The role of practice management education—an umbrella term to describe salary negotiation, billing and coding, law and malpractice, and so on—has been lacking in residency and fellowship programs across the country. In fact, prior surveys have indicated a nearly universal lack of confidence in these topics among trainees across different specialties. Meanwhile, some specialties such as family medicine ...

By Wade Smith, MD, PhD, FNCS Fulfilling Our Mission Through Education Dear NCS Members, Fall brings with it many new beginnings, and as students return to school, we as neurocritical care practitioners can take the time to enhance our own practice, as well. While we may have already completed our formal education, continuing education is a crucial part of our career. By keeping up with what’s new in the field, we stay current with the science and knowledge that helps us improve patient care. As an NCS member, you have access to a library ...