Episode 59: The SALAD Technique
Author: Eoghan Colgan @eoghan_colgan
Special Guest: Jim DuCanto @jducanto
04/05/20
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Guest Bios
Dr. James (Jim) DuCanto is a practicing Anesthesiologist for the past twenty three years at Advocate Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center, the largest private hospital in the state of Wisconsin. He has coordinated and supervised the Anesthesiology rotation for resident physicians and medical students at Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center from 2004 until the Spring of 2020. Expanding his vision for the education of prehospital health care workers, he assumed the role of Medical Director of the Mid-State Technical College EMS program in May 2020, and moved his Anesthetics practice to the community hospitals and other procedural facilities of Advocate Aurora Health Care in the summer of 2020.
Through the phenomenon of FOAMed (Free Open Access Medical Education), he has collaborated with Emergency Medicine, Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Prehospital and Retrieval Medical educators worldwide. Through his collaborations with colleagues in these diverse specialties, he has produced innovations related to Prehospital, Emergency Medicine and Critical Care airway management with the invention of a specialized rigid suction catheter (the “SSCOR DuCanto Suction Catheter”) as well as techniques to manage the massively soiled airway (the “SALAD" Technique), and a simulator to demonstrate and practice the SALAD technique (the Nasco Life/form® S.A.L.A.D. Simulator).
Dr. DuCanto became board certified in Integrative and Holistic Medicine in December of 2008, and has an interest in "Alternative" and "Complementary" medicine. He is an independent Reiki Master that teaches classes in Reiki through Aurora Complementary Medicine since 2007. He has included techniques of Therapeutic Breathwork into both simulation and clinical airway management training.
Show Notes
Dr Jim Ducanto is an anaesthetist from the USA and founder of the SALAD technique, a stepwise approach to intubating the heavily soiled/bloody airway. In this episode, Eoghan and Jim discuss the background to, and the fundamentals of, the procedure. Plus, there’s a special offer for St Mungo’s listeners at the end.
TAKE-HOME POINTS
Hand-over grip of suction
Open mouth and lead with suction - clear contents then lift tongue/jaw with suction catheter
Advance laryngoscope into position but advance it ‘behind’ the suction so keeping camera free from blood/vomitus
When laryngoscope in position, take suction out of mouth and position down left side of the laryngoscope and ideally into the upper oesophagus (that’s provides continual suction during ET Placement (SALAD PARK)
Can do a ‘SALAD POKE’ with right index finger, to create more space on right side of mouth for ET Tube
links
Access the SALAD Technique course on Continulus at: https://www.continulus.com/courses/the-salad-technique/
Users of St Mungo’s can get 25% off the course using coupon
SALAD25
A summary video of the online SALAD technique course
Free tutorial from the online SALAD Technique course