Positive Communication Programme Cuts ICU Staff Burnout  In ICU Sun, 9 Nov 2025 Burnout among intensive care unit (ICU) professionals remains a persistent concern, with earlier reports indicating levels approaching 60% in these settings. The Hello trial tested whether a pragmatic, unit-wide programme designed to support organisational culture and team climate could reduce burnout across a broad int...

Sex-Based Disparities in Sepsis Treatment  In Sepsis Wed, 5 Nov 2025 Sepsis remains one of the leading causes of death in intensive care units worldwide. Despite significant progress in early detection and management, antibiotic dosing protocols often fail to account for patient-specific factors, particularly those linked to biological sex and gender-related disparities in care.  A new editorial in the Journal of I...

Invited Commentary  Rethinking Failure to Rescue After Anastomotic Leak Cynthia Araradian, Shelby Willis, Sandy H. Fang JAMA Surg Published Online: February 11, 2026 doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2025.6557 Death after major complications or failure to rescue (FTR) is an important quality safety metric used to measure hospital surgical care, and it affects hospital reimbursement. Anastomotic leak is a severe complication of colorectal surgery that has been link...

Keeping the ARDS Patient Dry In ICU Thu, 19 Mar 2026 Fluid management in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) remains a complex and evolving area, with no single ‘optimal’ strategy. Discussing this @ISICEM, Prof Daniel De Backer emphasised that while avoiding fluid overload is important, the key challenge is tailoring therapy to the individual patient rather than adhering to rigid ‘dry’ or ‘wet’ approaches. Historically, fluid management in AR...

Digital Twins and ICU Care In ICU Thu, 19 Mar 2026 In an interview with ISICEM News, Nathalie Layios, Thomas Desaive, and Vincent Uyttendaele of the University of Liège shared insights on how digital twins could transform ICU care.  The concept of a digital twin, defined as a continuously updated computational replica of a patient or physiological system, is rapidly transitioning from engineering into intensive care medicine, where it...

Editorial  Reconsidering Oxygen at Birth for Preterm Infants: Lessons From TORPIDO 30/60 Alyssa R. Thomas, Elizabeth E. Foglia JAMA 2026;335;(6):495-496. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.23127 At birth, newborns must transition from the low-oxygen environment of the womb to postnatal normoxemia. Most preterm newborns require supplemental oxygen to support this process. Yet, active debate remains about the optimal starting fraction of inspired oxygen (Fio2) for prete...

Editorial Telesurgery 2.0 Prokar Dasgupta, Findlay MacAskill BMJ 2026; 392 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.s138 (Published 28 January 2026)Cite this as: BMJ 2026;392:s138 As practice re-emerges, patient engagement and standardisation of evaluation are crucial Interest in telesurgery has been renewed around 20 years after it first came into use. With telesurgery, a remote surgeon is able to operate with a tool on a patient over a distance between two hospit...

Precision and Practicality in Fluid Responsiveness In ICU Thu, 19 Mar 2026 At the 45th ISICEM in Brussels, Prof Sheila Myatra spoke about fluid responsiveness in ICU patients with acute circulatory failure, emphasising its critical role in guiding safe and effective fluid therapy. While intravenous fluids are a first-line intervention, only around 50% of patients are true fluid responders, meaning their cardiac output increases by at least 15% after fl...

Are All Opioids Equivalent? In ICU Thu, 19 Mar 2026 Opioids are widely used in ICU care, but they are not interchangeable. Differences in pharmacology between agents such as fentanyl, morphine, and hydromorphone become clinically important in critically ill patients, particularly in the presence of organ dysfunction, prolonged infusions, and ventilator management. Research by Hannah Wunsch presented @ISICEM highlights that opioid selection is...

Non-Invasive Technologies in Clinical Use on the Rise – A New Guideline In ICU Mon, 10 Mar 2025 ICU Management & Practice, Volume 25 - Issue 1, 2025 New guideline from the German Society for Anesthesiology that addresses the intraoperative clinical application of haemodynamic monitoring in non-cardiac surgical patients. The Executive Board of the German Society for Anesthesiology recently adopted a new guideline that addresses the intraopera...