How to take the perfect neonatal clotting sample

Aren’t neonatal clotting samples tricky! They are often crucially important for patient care, eg if surgery is planned or the baby is critically unwell. How can clinicians ensure their samples give accurate results and are not reported as “clotted”- We will give some top tips and some background theory in this article.

Neonatology in the Spotlight

I remember my supervisor once telling me that although neonatal medicine is a little fish in a big pond, it creates far-reaching ripples. In this post, I am going to describe an overview and signpost to the interventions currently focussed on improving neonatal care in our network and in the UK.

The NICU Team: The Unsung Shining Stars

The survival of a sick or premature baby requires hard work and dedication from the whole team, including the family. How often do we take time to understand all these roles and celebrate the efforts of the individuals involved? Understanding the roles of others in the team can help us work together more effectively.

It was my pleasure to talk with Sharon, who works as a cleaner in our NICU department at St Michael’s.

Finely Balanced: Preoperative Congenital Heart Disease

At St Mike’s, we provide care for newborn infants with an antenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease. For newcomers to the medical team in the unit, attending these deliveries can be an anxious prospect. This blog post is written to give some general pointers about the clinical problems you could encounter in the infant with preoperative congenital heart disease.

Blog post: Improving Quality of Quality Improvement

Are you befuddled by acronyms in quality improvement? Can you tell your audit from your elbow? Or your Fishbone from your Driver diagram? Would you like to know more about change in the NHS? This short article is a beginner’s guide to QI and a pitch as to why it is a cornerstone of clinicalContinue reading “Blog post: Improving Quality of Quality Improvement”

Journal Club Report: Impact of Rudeness on Team Performance

Author: Rebecca Treleaven, Paediatric Trainee, Severn Deanery Article citation: The Impact of Rudeness on Medical Team Performance: A Randomized Trial Arieh Riskin, Amir Erez, Trevor A. Foulk, Amir Kugelman, Ayala Gover, Irit Shoris, Kinneret S. Riskin, Peter A. Bamberger Pediatrics Sep 2015, 136 (3) 487-495; DOI: 10.1542/peds.2015-1385 Study question: What impact does rudeness have on team performance? Study design: Randomised intervention, simulation Methods: This was a double blind randomised control trial carried out in a neonatalContinue reading “Journal Club Report: Impact of Rudeness on Team Performance”