A few objections I hear a lot in relation to intubating patients in the upright or semi-upright position are: I’m not comfortable elevating the head of the bed after inducing anesthesia.  I’m concerned about hypotension and cerebral perfusion in the head-up position after the induction of anesthesia. I think that underlying this objection is the ingrained bias that all patients …

Many years ago, I was struggling to intubate a patient endoscopically.  The patient had difficult airway anatomy due to head and neck cancer.  I was standing at the head of the bed, the patient was supine, I couldn’t get the scope around the base of the tongue, and I couldn’t see anything except soft tissue.  The ENT surgeon watched me …

Yes.  Really.  Starting in late October 2004, I kept careful records of all my endoscopic intubations. Taking into account days off—vacation, post-call, holidays, family leave, etc.—I worked about ten months per year and consistently performed well more than 400 endoscopic intubations per year. In mid-June of 2014, I accomplished my 4000th endoscopic intubation.  I calculate this took me about 98 …

Below are some of the most common questions received regarding Flexible Fiberoptic Intubation. Have you really accomplished more than 6000 fiberoptic intubations? Yes.  Really.  Starting in October 2004, I kept careful records of all my intubations.  I consistently performed more than 400 endoscopic intubations per year, every year.  In June of 2014, I accomplished my 4000th intubation.  Nothing has changed …