Description

Instructor: Matthew D White, Alana Hawley, Gordon Giesbrecht, Doug Brown
Date: Saturday Nov 2
Time: 1430-1600
Cost: FREE
Type: Virtual and In-Person

No registration required, you may attend this workshop on Saturday November 2, 2024 in-person in the main plenary session or digitally from the CAWM2024 page.

Four presentations and panel discussion with 2 emergency department (ED) physicians and 2 thermal physiologists. The session topic is an extremely hypothermic, intoxicated, and stoned kayaker who capsized and subsequently cooled rapidly in Okanagan Lake with a water temperature of 3°C. The challenges to assess and treat the patient based on the different hypothermic staging systems of this patient, who continued to shiver at a core temperature of 22.9°C, will first be described by the ED physician (A. Hawley). Next will be a presentation (M. White) on a summary of characteristics and responses of previously reported surviving hypothermic patients, with core temperatures < 32°C, who in some cases were still shivering. The third presentation (G. Giesbrecht) will include recommended practices and underlying mechanisms of post-rescue collapse of hypothermic patients. The session will conclude with a presentation (D. Brown) summarizing and reviewing the different hypothermic staging systems and their potential or suggested revisions. The presentations will be followed by a panel discussion including Q&A from the audience.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this session participants will be able to:

1. Appreciate that hypothermic patients may have a level of consciousness, core temperature drop and shivering not falling into the groupings of the original Swiss, proposed revised Swiss or Wilderness Medical Society (WMS) hypothermia staging systems.
2. Recognize characteristics and responses, including shivering, in patients surviving extreme hypothermic with core temperatures < 32°C.
3. Understand the underlying mechanisms of post rescue collapse, and best practices to employ during rescue of hypothermic patients to avoid this collapse.
4. Recognize and appreciate possible limitations as well as suggested revisions for hypothermic staging systems for patients falling outside the groupings of these staging systems.