Author's Overview of SLAM - Street Level Airway Management: Breathing is the Key - Education is the Answer! This book offers current information on emergency and difficult airway management from the "Street Level" through all areas of the hospital!

My goal in writing SLAM: Street Level Airway Management was to create a cutting edge, evidence-based book on emergency and difficult airway management. I wanted to produce a book that offers solutions to emergency and difficult airway situations for those practicing from the "street level" through all areas of the hospital, which is what the SLAM Airway Course has done for nearly a decade. I have practiced nurse anesthesia for nearly 30 years, which has allowed me to teach emergency and difficult airway management to many different types of providers. This has resulted in me collaborating with a seasoned group of 24 international airway experts, educators, researchers, inventors and practitioners from all areas of clinical practice to write this practical text. My hope is that this book will become an indispensable benefit to any practitioner who needs to provide safe and effective airway management, regardless of the professional discipline in which he of she is practicing. At about a penny a page it is a real bargain.

SLAM: Street Level Airway Management is based upon my emergency and difficult airway flowchart and my SLAM Emergency Airway Provider Course. Using the SLAM Concept and the SLAM Universal Adult Airway Flowchart as a starting point, it focuses on the fundamental aspects of anatomy, patient condition and clinical considerations promoting both patient safety and clinical competency. The book brings together information that has been taught for years at the SLAM courses and presented at the slamairway.com website. Excellent figures (photos, detailed drawings and line drawings) as well as clearly presented tables simplify and reinforce the learning of difficult topics.

SLAM: Street Level Airway Management offers a practical approach for prehospital practitioners (paramedics & flight nurses) as well as hospital based providers such as respiratory care practitioners, CRNAs, residents and physicians practicing airway management. It instructs practitioners on a number of levels on how to: a) form a plan of care; b) assess and evaluate the airway; c) effectively oxygenate and ventilate critically ill patients; d) increase success in passing the tracheal tube on the first attempt; e) rescue failed intubation and effectively perform rescue ventilation; f) utilize AHA approved methods to confirm tracheal intubation and monitor lung ventilation; g) deal with special airway situations seen during trauma, burn and inhalation injuries, c-spine injury, pregnancy and pediatrics; and h) effectively apply advanced intubation techniques. Chapters include: 1) SLAM Universal Adult Airway Flowchart; 2) Airway Anatomy and Assessment; 3) Oxygenation and Ventilation in Adults; 4) Direct Laryngoscopy and Tracheal Intubation; 5) Confirmation of Tracheal Intubation and Monitoring of Lung Ventilation; 6) Pharmacology of Airway Management; 7) Rapid Sequence Induction and Intubation in Adults; 8) Rescue ventilation; 9) Advanced Techniques for Difficult Intubation; 10) Fiberscopic and Video-Assisted Intubation; 11) Lightwand Intubation; 12) Cricothyrotomy; 13) The Traumatized Airway; 14) The Cervical-Spine-Injured Patient; 15) Burns and Inhalation Injuries; 16) The Pediatric Airway; 17) Sedation/Analgesia for Postintubation Management; 18) Legal Implications of Emergency Airway Management; and 19) Nosocomial Risks of Airway Management.

Besides showing effective ways to deal with difficult ventilation and rescue failed intubation, the book also introduces and reinforces some cutting-edge topics, such as: 1) Mason's PU-92 concept; 2) Recognition & Management of Critical Airway Events; 3) 6-D Method of Difficult Airway Assessment; 4) Bougie-Assisted Intubation; 5) Use of CPAP, BiPAP and proper use of supraglottic airway devices; 6) Rescue Ventilation; 7) Simple Rescue Intubation techniques; 8) AHA and ILCOR Guidelines 2005 recommendations; and 9) The SLAM Universal Adult Airway Flowchart: the flowchart's 5 pathways can be easily followed using the full-color 11" X 17" high resolution copy of the flowchart that is included as a foldout of the inside front cover. Everyone from EMTs and paramedics through healthcare educators in prehospital care, pulmonary medicine, intensive care, respiratory care, anesthesiology and emergency medicine should find this book valuable for learning, teaching and practicing emergency and difficult airway management, from the prehospital "street level" through all areas of the hospital.

SLAM: Street Level Airway Management's contribution to the field of airway management is based upon its overarching message: "Patient's Die or Suffer Debilitating Brain Injury from Failure to Ventilate and Failure to Oxygenate - Not From Failure to Intubate". Therefore, Learn SLAM: Street Level Airway Management, Because If Your Patient Can't Breathe - Nothing Else Matters!!!

Reviewers xiii

Bryan E. Bledsoe, DO, FA, CEP, EMT-P
Emergency Physician
Midlothian, Texas
and
Adjunct Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
The George Washington University Medical Center
Washington, DC

Timothy P. Duncan, RN, CCRN, CEN, CFRN, EMTP
Flight Nurse/St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center Life Flight
Toledo, OH

Randal Gray, MA Ed, NREMT-P
Director, Office of EMS
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Russell Griffin, NR/CC-P
EMS Captain
McKinney Fire/EMS
McKinney, Texas

Sean Kivlehan, EMT-P
EMS Coordinator/Instructor
Mount Pleasant Fire Dept.
Racine, WI

Joseph J. Mistovich, M.Ed, NREMT-P
Chair and Professor
Department of health Professions
Youngstown State University
Youngstown, Ohio

Brian Petrone PA-C, EMT-P
Burlington, Massachusetts

Susie Vigh, BSRRT, NREMT-P, EMSI
EMT Program instructor
Polaris Career Center
Middleburg Hts, OH

Matthew Zavarella, RN, NREMT-P, MS, SRNA, CFRN, CCRN, CEN
Flight Nurse State MedEvac
Pittsburgh, PA