As you will probably know, the Social Media And Critical Care (SMACC) congress took place last week in Berlin: Das SMACC! This was, again, an awesome congress with many inspiring lectures and workshops. And this year I was honored to be part of the faculty of the airway workshop. It is almost impossible to summarize all the things I have learned and appreciated in these days. But to give you an impression, I decided to list some key points and quotes of the things I heard. This can either be a summarizing sentence, based on the talk, or a quote in quotation marks. Credits are given to the speaker. I recommend you watching the lectures yourself when they become available online.

1. “SMACC is like a reunion of friends who have never met before.” – Chris Nickson
2. We have to start using technology more to save lives. The future is now. – Brian Burns
3. “I got the diagnosis, but missed the point.” – Jessica Mason
4. Be kind to yourself when you talk to yourself in your thoughts. Negative self-talk has a negative impact, positive self-talk has a positive impact. – Sara Gray
5. Have a friend to talk to about your failures in clinical practice. – Sara Gray
6. You can be sure of the fact that we all will die someday. This also counts for your patient. Learn to accept this and consider withholding treatment when this will not lead to recovery. – Alex Psirides
7. “We train to perform CPR, but we do not train to not perform CPR.” – Alex Psirides
8. Don’t rely on physiologic reasoning. Many treatments based on physiology were bad for the outcome of our patients. Look at the evidence. – Rinaldo Bellomo
9. When setting up a program, look at all aspects: clinical practice, education, research and administration. – Resa Lewiss
10. Think of endocarditis in patients with the combination of fever + one of these four: stroke, back pain, heart failure, 1° AV block – David Carr
11. Use actors in simulation, when teaching on interaction between health care providers and patients. – Learning from sim sessions
12. Driving pressures matter – Marcelo Amato
13. Humor can have in medicine – realized this after hearing Suman Biswas
14. “How you arrive at work will set the tone for the day.” – Liz Crowe
15. “The director does not set the culture, you do.” – Liz Crowe
16. There are tribes in the hospital. But it is not about the tribe, it is about the patient. Make the team a tribe. – Panel discussion by Walter Eppich, Jesse Spurr, Liz Crowe, Carol Hodgson, Ashley Liebig and Sandra Viggers.
17. Complex problem? Divide it into different elements and delegate it to subteams. – Chris Hicks
18. Want to increase survival in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest? Do the basics well: BLS, AED and good emergency and critical care. – Maaret Castren
19. Arrest after cardiac surgery? Perform resternotomy in an early stage. – Nikki Stamp
20. Doctors do not rule the resus. But: ergonomics, nurse-led codes, assigned roles, communication and briefing rule the resus room. – Ashley Liebig
21. Use ultrasound for the lungs. And don’t let anyone hold you back. – Daniel Lichtenstein
22. Don’t forget cardiac disease as a possible cause in children with subtle symptoms or failure to thrive. – Michele Domico
23. Medicine is too complex to be caught in numbers and protocols, just like life. When you have sufficient experience, you can use naturalistic decision making. – MJ Slabbert
24. In anaphylaxis, give adrenaline. And don’t forget to educate the patient and send them home with an epi-pen. – Daniel Cabrera
25. Use ultrasound during every resus, preferably transesophageal ultrasound (TEE). – Resuscitation panel
26. When aiming for 36 degrees in post-resuscitation care: still focus on temperature management. You still need to cool the patient to prevent fever. – Resuscitation panel
27. Having a drink together is a great way to exchange ideas, get new friends and expand your horizon – SMACC party.
28. You will fail. Face it and learn from it. – Kevin Fong
29. When you think: WTF? Stop that thought and ask: what made him/her do that? – Jenny Rudolph
30. Care about refugees. – Vera Sistenich
31. When you failed, make sure the system also learns. – Martin Bromiley
32. SMACC is oxygen. – Peter Brindley
33. After 10 days, the ICU patient goes into a chronic state and prognosis is not determined by the characteristics of the acute setting, but by the clinical status before admission. – Jack Iwashyna
34. Ubuntu: the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity. – Annet Alenyo Ngabirano
35. “Thank you” – James Piercy

Furthermore, take a look at my tweets during #dasSMACC;

Tweets by @

Also recommended: the Lessons Learned and Take Home Messages From dasSMACC – R.E.B.E.L. EM