TopMedTalk

TopMedTalk

TopMedTalk for the latest medical news surrounding Anaesthesia, Perioperative Care and Enhanced Recovery. Live updates from conferences; Journal Club; Techno Talk and Hot-Topic podcasts. Continuing Medical Education (CME) on the go

  1. 6 hr ago

    IARS 2026: WFSA Programs and Paediatric Anaesthesia Training in Africa

    At the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS) and Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists (SOCCA) meeting in Montreal, TopMedTalk hosts Mike Grocott and Desiree Chappell speak with Dr Faye Evans, Senior Associate in Perioperative Anesthesia at Boston Children's Hospital and Associate Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School and Director of Partnerships on the Board of Directors for the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA). The conversation covers efforts to improve access to safe surgery and anesthesia for children globally. Evans explains the WFSA as a society of over 150 member societies focused on advocacy, safety, quality, publications, short courses (including SAFE), and a fellowship program that has trained over 400 fellows from 62 countries. She highlights growing emphasis on leadership, teaching, and evaluation within fellowships and describes Pediatric Anesthesia Training in Africa (PATA), formed to expand fellowship training, which has developed a shared curriculum and launched four programs with support from ELMA Philanthropies and Smile Train. Evans outlines ways to get involved through teaching, virtual support, and donations via the WFSA website. If you would like to support the WFSA Scholars Program we mention this link in the show: https://wfsahq.org/get-involved/donate/ -- The 2026 International Practicum on Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing will be held at the Balmer Lawn Hotel in Brockenhurst, UK, from September 16th to 18th this year. It is organised by iPOETTS , the international perioperative testing and training society. Come and join us at this premier educational event designed for clinicians, scientists, and healthcare professionals interested in sport, exercise, and perioperative medicine. This is an International Perioperative Testing and Training Society accredited event so when you attend you can get your iPOETTS accreditation, showing that you are a practitioner who has reached a high, standardized level of competence in performing and interpreting Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) for patients preparing for major surgery. Go now to http://www.ebpom.org

  2. 6 days ago

    EBPOM 2026: Research oral abstract finalists

    Joff Lacey and Imogen Fecher-Jones interview six oral abstract finalists at this years' EBPOM. Nora Cruz Rodriguez; Association Between Participation in Remote Prehabilitation and High-Dependency Unit Length of Stay After Oesophagectomy and Radical Cystectomy: A Retrospective Cohort. Alexios Dosis; Remote wearable monitoring as a preoperative risk assessment tool. Ned Douglas; The Fluids, Atomoxetine or Midodrine (FAME) pilot trial. Tom Scodellaro; The new normal: CPET findings in patients aged 80 years and older. Gerry O'Callaghan; Preventing and Reducing Re-Presentations and Admissions following surgery, new thinking required. Sandy (Alexander) Jackson; Cost of Radial Arterial Line Placement in UK Operating Theatres. -- The 2026 International Practicum on Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing will be held at the Balmer Lawn Hotel in Brockenhurst, UK, from September 16th to 18th this year. It is organised by iPOETTS , the international perioperative testing and training society. Come and join us at this premier educational event designed for clinicians, scientists, and healthcare professionals interested in sport, exercise, and perioperative medicine. This is an International Perioperative Testing and Training Society accredited event so when you attend you can get your iPOETTS accreditation, showing that you are a practitioner who has reached a high, standardized level of competence in performing and interpreting Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) for patients preparing for major surgery. Go now to http://www.ebpom.org

  3. 6 Jul

    TopMedTalk Classic: Dan Martin and the Ebola Epidemic of 2018

    This month's TopMedTalk Classic is particularly topical: first broadcast back in 2018 but relevant once again after the recent news of an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Originally recorded at the Intensive Care Society State of the Art Meeting in London, Desiree Chappell and Monty Mythen speak with Dan Martin, OBE, now Professor at the University of Plymouth and Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, about the critical care management of Ebola and other viral haemorrhagic fevers. Dan Martin describes the Royal Free Hospital's role as the UK designated centre, using a Trexler isolator system to protect staff (rather than full PPE) and rehearsed RAF-supported repatriation and hospital drills, including simulations for intubation, lines and CPR. He explains that Ebola is not inevitably fatal and that outcomes improve with safe, good basic intensive care—fluids, electrolytes and preventing secondary infection—while evidence for expensive experimental therapies is limited. The discussion also covers screening based on travel history, UK planning for "high consequence infectious diseases," and international training visits. -- The 2026 International Practicum on Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing will be held at the Balmer Lawn Hotel in Brockenhurst, UK, from September 16th to 18th this year. It is organised by iPOETTS , the international perioperative testing and training society. Come and join us at this premier educational event designed for clinicians, scientists, and healthcare professionals interested in sport, exercise, and perioperative medicine. This is an International Perioperative Testing and Training Society accredited event so when you attend you can get your iPOETTS accreditation, showing that you are a practitioner who has reached a high, standardized level of competence in performing and interpreting Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) for patients preparing for major surgery. Go now to http://www.ebpom.org

  4. 2 Jul

    NEJM and BMJ Editors: Joys and Challenges of Medical Publishing

    This piece is essential listening for anyone interested in modern academic publishing. Recorded at the Collaborative Clinical Trials Meeting in Prato, Italy, TopMedTalk hosts Kate Leslie and Mike Grocott speak with Eric Rubin (Editor-in-Chief, New England Journal of Medicine) and Jocalyn Clark (International Editor, BMJ) about medical publishing. The conversation covers, engaging with clinical researchers and seeing impactful work. How AI can help authors—especially non-native English speakers—while raising concerns about confidentiality, inaccurate or fabricated content, reviewer misuse, governance policies that struggle to keep pace, and AI-generated correspondence overwhelming journals. They explore how AI affects originality and idea generation, note an NEJM AI experiment using AI reviews, and consider how journals should communicate beyond clinicians to address misinformation and declining attention, while maintaining trust and collaborating more across publishing and science. -- The 2026 International Practicum on Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing will be held at the Balmer Lawn Hotel in Brockenhurst, UK, from September 16th to 18th this year. It is organised by iPOETTS , the international perioperative testing and training society. Come and join us at this premier educational event designed for clinicians, scientists, and healthcare professionals interested in sport, exercise, and perioperative medicine. This is an International Perioperative Testing and Training Society accredited event so when you attend you can get your iPOETTS accreditation, showing that you are a practitioner who has reached a high, standardized level of competence in performing and interpreting Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) for patients preparing for major surgery. Go now to http://www.ebpom.org

  5. 29 Jun

    Perioperative Profile: Bruce Biccard

    Live from the World Congress of Anesthesiologists in Marrakesh, Kate Leslie speaks with Bruce Biccard, Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetic Science at the University of Oxford, Director of the African Perioperative Research Group, and board member of IARS and Safe Surgery South Africa. Bruce reflects on growing up in apartheid-era Cape Town, training in anaesthesia amid high-acuity care including trauma and HIV, and developing an interest in research through perioperative beta-blocker studies and mentorship in Oxford. He describes building South African and pan-African research collaborations that led to the African Surgical Outcomes Study (ASOS), which found mortality and failure-to-rescue rates about twice global averages despite relatively fit patients. He discusses a subsequent 30,000-patient cluster trial that showed no outcome improvement, highlighting implementation challenges, and outlines how Oxford's expertise can strengthen global health research in Africa and advance work on perioperative cognitive dysfunction. -- The 2026 International Practicum on Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing will be held at the Balmer Lawn Hotel in Brockenhurst, UK, from September 16th to 18th this year. It is organised by iPOETTS , the international perioperative testing and training society. Come and join us at this premier educational event designed for clinicians, scientists, and healthcare professionals interested in sport, exercise, and perioperative medicine. This is an International Perioperative Testing and Training Society accredited event so when you attend you can get your iPOETTS accreditation, showing that you are a practitioner who has reached a high, standardized level of competence in performing and interpreting Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) for patients preparing for major surgery. Go now to http://www.ebpom.org

  6. 22 Jun

    TopMedTalk AI: Generative AI Basics, Biases and the Future

    At the World Congress of Anaesthesiologists (WCA) in Marrakech, Morocco, TopMedTalk co-editors In chief, Kate Leslie and Mike Grocott speak with Sydney anaesthesiologist Alwin Chuan, a member of the joint ESRA-ASRA working group on AI, about strengths and limitations of AI for regional anaesthesia and medicine. Chuan explains how generative AI is trained on vast datasets using transformer architectures, why outputs are probabilistic, and how context affects meaning. They discuss privacy and the possibility of personal or creative work being used as a commodity in training, internet "scraping," and the inevitability of hallucinations, including false facts and fabricated citations. The conversation covers bias in training corpora, the need for human curation and reinforcement learning, and mitigation via prompt engineering such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), citation/page verification, and confidence estimates. Chuan predicts future advances and the fusion of imaging AI with generative AI for ultrasound guidance, previewing a follow-up episode. -- Join us at Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) World Congress 2026 in London. Be part of a global conversation as clinicians from around the world gather between 7-9th July at the British Library in London. Three days of evidence-based perioperative medicine, global insights, and expert debate—featuring speakers including Michael Marmot and Ken Rockwood. Register here - EBPOM World Congress 2026

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TopMedTalk for the latest medical news surrounding Anaesthesia, Perioperative Care and Enhanced Recovery. Live updates from conferences; Journal Club; Techno Talk and Hot-Topic podcasts. Continuing Medical Education (CME) on the go

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