One of my medical education interests is looking at how we train and practice rarely performed procedures. For these situations, simulation offers an excellent method of training. The challenge, however, is recreating the fidelity of such situations since many rarely performed procedures are quite invasive.  Often we’ll start the training with a task-trainer like model and then progress to a full size manikin. Task-trainers are simulation models specifically designed for one type of procedure. 

In emergency and pre-hospital medicine, the cricothyroidotomy is among the most invasive, time critical yet rarely performed procedures. In addition to the potential technical challenges of this procedure, the decision to perform a cric might be even more difficult.  Identifying a “can’t intubate, can’t ventilate” scenario and then to “pull the trigger” may be one of the hardest cognitive leaps we face in resuscitation.  For example, last week, in the  Auckland emergency department we ran an…