OK. It’s been a long year. In the interests of taking a deep breath it seems timely to loop back to the posts that had the most people dropping by through the year – a top 10 if you like. 

So here is definitely a post that’s all about being appropriately reflective. It is definitely not a post that is designed to fill a little time. It is definitely not designed to distract from the fact that a bunch of other projects have got in the way of more regular posting.

Look, it’s the time of year when actual journalism joints are mashing together ‘best of’ lists so they can shadow staff with the smallest handful of staff possible including that dog who wheezes at rest.

But it’s not only about throwing up the jazz hands to distract.  It’s actually a good chance to look back at things and then think about what comes next.

Actually, one thing on the way past

While this post is about the top posts for this year, it’s worth not in that one of the earliest posts remains incredibly popular. Which one? The one about poking kids with cannulas. Stabbing little people with the sharp things is just perpetually of interest.

10. Specific Plans for Specific Kids

Coming in at number 10 was a podcast. Slightly lonely on the podcasting front, which isn’t entirely for lack of effort but maybe that’ll be a priority for the coming year.

Anyway, this podcast is about the needs of kids on the autistic spectrum and touches on the program we’re developing for kids who find the experience of even coming to hospital to be a huge assault to the system.

9. The Village Revisited

Coming in next was a reboot that’s a lot about airways. Because when you want to think about airways surely you want to tackle them in the context of an ancient quest to support the health of a village undergoing renovations. The post covers a bit about airway myths, planning and techniques.

8. Clear Air

THRIVE is very popular for many people. So it’s not surprising that this post, which sort of builds on this earlier post also looking at evidence for THRIVE in kids. Of course there’s not really THRIVE in kids because ventilatory exchange doesn’t seem to happen. The interesting bit is probably going to kick in when we move beyond just stuff looking at Transnasal Humidified Oxygen Cramming (because that’s what we’ve looked at) and start seeing more on spontaneously ventilating techniques in kids. And then I guess there’ll be post 3.

7. Monitors that Work and Don’t Work

There turned out to be more than one post arising from stuff at conferences. This one covers the story of cerebral oximetry, how it helps and doesn’t and more fundamentally about trying to incorporate extra monitoring into clinical practice. And counting above the number 7. Also this post featured a very important pig.

6. Reality Bites

There are brave new worlds and most of them probably won’t be the ones that we just grab in front of us. This post also came from a conference thing on virtual and augmented reality in perioperative care of kids. Unfortunately it doesn’t come with the cool stuff to play with (though we’re trying to work on that). It also includes the only feature of a spider that has ever appeared on this website. Probably the only one that will ever appear.

5. Brains and Drugs

This is sort of a cheat. Neurotoxicity is a big enough topic this wasn’t one post. It was four. And the hot tip is it’ll need at least one update in the next year at a guess. For now if it floats your boat you can look at the animal stuff, the human stuff, the research we still need to see and what to do with it all right here and now.

4. A Classic Conundrum

Getting towards the pointy end and an old classic situation, the patient bleeding after tonsillectomy drew plenty of interest. Perhaps the most surprising thing when you go and look is there just isn’t that much evidence to let you know what people do.

3. We Built a Thing

The most excellent thing about this top 3 is it actually matches some personal favourites. A heap of work went into this redesign of the difficult airway trolley at our joint. We’re pretty glad other people seemed to like it too. It actually went as far as the Netherlands (and henceforth kangaroos will only ever be kangoeroes in my head).

If airway trolleys are your thing of course, you could do a bit of reading in the form of this editorial, which also features the trolley.

2. We Like to Plan

An airway needs a plan of course, and there are more than a few algorithms proposed. But when you want something slightly different sometimes you need to think fresh. Following on from the airway trolley we also reworked an option we like better for planning for the difficult airway. The post was popular but of course it’s early days and more testing is needed. Early trials are looking good though.

 

1. Big Injuries in Tiny Types

A drum roll seems not quite right for this topic, but it was heartening to see so many engaged with this walk through the topic of trauma in kids. Perhaps it’s a marker that no one feels comfortable with trauma in kids because there just aren’t any experts, at least locally.

 

So what next? Well more posts. Probably on kids’ anaesthesia. Hopefully more podcasts. They will also be on kids’ anaesthesia.

Oh, and maybe very important and serious things.