I redoubled efforts to have fluid physiology recognised as a subspecialty of intensive/ critical care medicine and anaesthesia/ anesthesiology with Podcasts on TopMedTalk, and was rewarded with an Endorsement from UCL’s Monty Mythen that reading the book could be “Career-changing”. Korbin Haycock, EM Physician at Loma Linda in California, called the book “Fantastic”.
Then my young friend Mike Grocott pointed our Twitter realm to yet another colloid v crystalloid comparison and, no surprises, Normal Saline remains the undisputed Gold Standard extracellular fluid substitute. Use of the colloid reduced perioperative fluid administration by 0.25 litres (P<0.05). Relative risk of death with the colloid 1.8 (ns).
Hope Mike will forgive me if I indulge in a recollection of his early days as only our second Professor of Anaesthesia in Southampton. Mike James, a renowned colloidista from South Africa, was visiting us soon after his publication of a randomised trial in BJA. Anaesthetists from all over the South gathered to hear MFM, and as a warm up act we put on a Grocott v Woodcock Debate, a colloid Pro – Con. Grocott won the debate by a landslide… Perhaps these days he might let the old man win!
AND FINALLY >>> Mike is going to run this years London Marathon! A lot less exciting than dropping your climbing trousers a metre or two away from the summit of Everest, but a Great Cause and a Marvellous Scientist, please Sponsor Mike and support life-saving work in Africa by anaesthetists from around the globe. My daughter Anna will be racing against Mike – if he betters her time I too will donate! Go Mike! (but remember, Ladies First…)
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