At the HEMS Education Day on 30th May 2018, we had two great presentations on regional anaesthesia from guest speakers Andrew Lansdown and Ananth Kumar.

Ex-Sydney HEMS registrar and current consultant anaesthetist Andrew Lansdown gave us an excellent presentation on regional anaesthesia of the hip, thigh and knee. He has kindly shared his slides below.

 
 
Fellow anesthetist Dr Ananth Kumar then covered the Serratus Anterior Plane (SAP) block, perfect for anterior / lateral rib fractures. First described in 2013, this ultrasound-guided approach is simple, safe, and very effective, although its exact mechanism of action is still somewhat mysterious.

 
Here’s a video of the SAP block being done:

 
The talks were followed by practical stations, in which the retrieval Sonosite iViz devices were used to identify sonoanatomy in volunteers.