Der Anaesthesist
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The COVID-19 pandemic posed enormous challenges to the German healthcare system and highlighted the need for strategies to recruit, train, and deploy medical personnel. Until now, no holistic concept existed to use medical students as support for professionals in intensive care units (ICU) to avoid staff shortages in medical care. ⋯ The results show a good feasibility of an innovative training concept for medical students with respect to a pandemic deployment as assistants in intensive care units. The concept is suitable for providing additional helpers in intensive care units during a pandemic; however, the inconsistent evaluation indicates that the concept can be expanded and needs to be adapted.
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Due to the development of compact and mobile devices, transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is now being used as one important point-of-care diagnostic method in emergency rooms, intensive care units and operating rooms. In the first part of this advanced training series, general aspects of the examination method and the procedure as well as indications and contraindications were outlined. ⋯ A shortened emergency examination as proposed by Reeves et al. is outlined. The article concludes with an outlook on semiautomatic interpretation software and computer-aided image acquisition.
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After a resuscitation situation a SARS-CoV‑2 sample from a 55-year-old man who had been in the hospital for elective ablation for atrial fibrillation was tested positive. The patient history revealed that there had been a previous confirmed contact with a COVID-19 positive patient. ⋯ After about 2 weeks of treatment, weaning had to be stopped due to the deterioration of the severe septic condition of the patient and he showed microbiological evidence of a superinfection with Cryptococcus neoformans and later Leclercia adecarboxylata. The patient was treated successfully and survived the disease.