Obsgynaecritcare

146 Current challenges and research directions in sepsis

Hi everyone, Sepsis is an important cause of mortality and morbidity in our patients. It is common but can be difficult to diagnose, challenging to manage and sometimes downright scary. After being inspired by listening to an episode from “The Critical Care Commute Podcast” (with Dr Mervyn Singer a UK intensivist involved in sepsis 3.0), Graeme and I sit down to discuss some of these thought provoking areas of sepsis which are controversial and are still actively being researched. Thanks again Graeme! REFERENCES The Critical Care Commute Podcast [https://criticalcarecommute.com]

145 ERAS a discussion with Dr Jen Kielty

Hi Everyone, This week I am joined by Dr Jen Kielty to discuss ERAS – Enhanced Recovery After Surgery. Jen has been helping us with the introduction of ERAS here at our hospital and also shares her experience with the introduction of ERAS into obstetrics at two hospitals back in Ireland. What is ERAS? Why is ERAS good for patients and good for the hospital? What are the components of an ERAS program? A big shout out to Dr Chloe Ayres here at KEMH as the champion for this initiative. Chloe has done a huge amount of work to make this a success here in our gynae-oncology patients and without her enthusiasm it probably would never have happened. Another big acknowledgement to my wife Andrea, who as the inaugural ERAS nurse has also had to do an amazing amount of work with staff and patients to make it a success! REFERENCES ERAS Society guidelines for Obstetrics and Gynaecology [https://erassociety.org/specialty/gynaecology/]

144 Suzetrigine a discussion with Declan

[https://www.obsgynaecritcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/suzetrigine.jpg] Hi everyone, This week Declan and I sit down to discuss a novel non opioid analgesic drug recently approved for use by the FDA, suzetrigine. What is it? How does it work? Why should we be interested in this new class of drugs and most importantly will it live up to it’s hype? REFERENCES Suzetrigine: First in a New Class of Nonopioid Analgesics for Acute Pain. Anesthesiology 142(6):p 989-991, June 2025. [https://journals.lww.com/anesthesiology/toc/2025/06000] | DOI: 10.1097/ALN.0000000000005465 – Unfortunately this is not a free article but well worth a read if you can get to it through your hospital or college library. The accompanying podcast of this editorial is open access – follow the following link. podcast [https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/anesthesiology/Suzetrigine_for_the_Treatment_of_Acute_Pain_FINAL.mp3] Suzetrigine Drug-Drug Interactions: Perioperative Anesthesia Considerations to Enhance Patient Safety [https://www.apsf.org/article/suzetrigine-drug-drug-interactions-perioperative-anesthesia-considerations-to-enhance-patient-safety/]

143 Magnesium in medicine with Declan

Hi Everyone, This week I sat down with Declan to discuss a fascinating therapy which is used in many areas of medicine. This podcast has a bit of everything, a quiz, a part one viva, dubious animal experimentation, discussions about laxatives, and even some references to cosmology and the Big Bang. Thanks Declan for another entertaining episode.

142 Peripartum cardiomyopathy with Dr Faith Njue

You are called to assess a pregnant woman who presents to your hospital complaining of shortness of breath. She is 36 weeks pregnant with twins and tells you she had been getting progressively short of breath over the last month but put it down to the physical effects of the twin pregnancy in her abdomen. However last night she couldn’t get her breath lying flat, had to sleep sitting up on 3-4 pillows and feels that “it is much worse”. On examination she has a respiratory rate of 24/min, SpO2 = 92%, HR 105/min, BP 95/45 and you can hear crepitations in both lung fields. Her initial blood tests come back showing a raised plasma BNP and a bedside ECHO is done by a helpful colleague – who says “subjectively her LV isn’t contracting very well”. Hi everyone, This week I sit down with Dr Faith Njue the most qualified person here in WA to discuss the rare but important disease – peripartum cardiomyopathy. (See Faith’s Bio below). Join us in our wide ranging discussion which touches on the diagnostic challenges, demographics, proposed mechanisms and general principles involved in managing these complex patients. Thanks Faith for a great discussion! Dr Faith Njue – Bio Faith Njue graduated from the University of Western Australia and completed cardiology training in Perth. She undertook further subspeciality training in advanced heart failure/ heart transplantation at Fiona Stanley Hospital and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute in Canada. Thereafter, she undertook further fellowship in cardio-obstetrics at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford (UK). She has special interest in women’s cardiovascular health, heart disease in pregnancy and heart failure. Faith runs the dedicated Western Cardiology cardio-obstetrics clinic, designed to support women at risk of or with pre-existing heart conditions, through preconception counselling, pregnancy and into the post-partum period. Cardio-obstetrics is an expanding subspecialty that focuses on prevention, early detection, and appropriate management of cardiovascular disease in pregnancy. She holds public consultant positions at Sir Charles Gairdner and Fiona Stanley hospitals. She is part of the Advanced heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant team at FSH. She is the cardiology clinical lead for High Risk pregnancy at FSH. REFERENCES Anaesthesia and peripartum cardiomyopathy Chapman, K. Njue F, Rucklidge M. BJA Education, Volume 23, Issue 12, 464 – 472 [https://www.bjaed.org/article/S2058-5349(23)00113-0/fulltext] Melanie Ricke-Hoch, Tobias J. Pfeffer, and Denise Hilfiker-Kleiner. Peripartumcardiomyopathy: basic mechanisms and hope for new therapies. Cardiovascular Research (2020) 116, 520–531. doi:10.1093/cvr/cvz252 [https://academic.oup.com/cardiovascres/article/116/3/520/5586231] Bauersachs J, König T, van der Meer P, et al. Pathophysiology, diagnosis and management of peripartum cardiomyopathy: a position statement from the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology Study Group on peripartum cardiomyopathy. Eur J Heart Fail. 2019 Jul;21(7):827-843. doi: 10.1002/ejhf.1493. Epub 2019 Jun 27. PMID: 31243866 [https://europepmc.org/article/MED/31243866] 2018 ESC Guidelines for the Management of Cardiovascular Disease During Pregnancy. European Heart Journal 2018. Vol 39;3165-3241 [https://www.escardio.org/Guidelines/Clinical-Practice-Guidelines/Cardiovascular-Diseases-during-Pregnancy-Management-of] Bromocriptine: Koenig T, Bauersachs J, Hilfiker-Kleiner D. Bromocriptine for the Treatment of Peripartum Cardiomyopathy. Card Fail Rev. 2018 May;4(1):46-49. doi: 10.15420/cfr.2018:2:2. PMID: 29892477; PMCID: PMC5971672 [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5971672/] Hilfiker-Kleiner D, Haghikia A, Berliner D, Vogel-Claussen J, Schwab J, Franke A, Schwarzkopf M, Ehlermann P, Pfister R, Michels G, Westenfeld R, Stangl V, Kindermann I, Kühl U, Angermann CE, Schlitt A, Fischer D, Podewski E, Böhm M, Sliwa K, Bauersachs J. Bromocriptine for the treatment of peripartum cardiomyopathy: a multicentre randomized study. Eur Heart J. 2017 Sep 14;38(35):2671-2679. doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehx355. PMID: 28934837; PMCID: PMC5837241. [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5971672/]