The Difficult Airway, Part Two: Management The Cricothyroid Membrane, ASA Videotape No. 16, will be available for distribution by the Burroughs Wellcome Company beginning this summer.

The tape, funded through an educational grant from Burroughs Wellcome, examines in detail the techniques of transtracheal jet ventilation, retrograde intubation, and cricothyroidotomy. It was filmed in the studios at the University of California, San Diego, with Terence M. Davidson, M.D., as producer/writer and Ms. Beth Meyer as director. Special thanks went to Harvey Shapiro, M.D. (host/narrator), Gayle Woodson, M.D., Steven Saltz, M.D., and Tony Sanchez, M.D.

The entire airway safety series has been overseen by the ASA Patient Safety and Risk Management Committee’s Task Force on The Difficult Airway. Serving on the task force are:

Robert A. Caplan, M.D., chairman; Jonathan L. Benumof, M.D., Michael J. Bishop, M.D., Casey D. Blitt, M.D., Frederick W. Cheney, M.D., David M. Gaba, M.D., Ellison C. Pierce, Jr., M.D., Mark H. Zornow, M.D., and Terence M. Davidson, M.D., Professor of Surgery (Head and Neck), Associate Dean for Continuing Medical Education, University of California, San Diego. The series is a production of the Office of Learning Resources-Television, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego.

The Airway Safety Videotape, Part Three: Fiberoptic Intubation, will be filmed in early summer and made available to anesthesia practitioners in the Fall.

Part One: The Algorithm, an ASA funded tape, was made available for distribution in August 1991.

All tapes in the ASA Patient Safety Videotape Series, many of which are still available, are distributed by Burroughs Wellcome representatives. Available tapes include:

Cassette A

Videotape No. I ASA Series Overview

Videotape No. 2 Preventing Disconnection in the Breathing Circuit

Videotape No. 3 Anesthesia Machine Checkout Cassette B

Videotape No. 4 Anesthesia Record keeping

Videotape No. 5 Human Error in Anesthesia

Videotape No. 6 Adverse Events Cassette C

Videotape No. 7 Monitoring with the Six Senses

Videotape No. 8 Monitoring with Instruments

Videotape No. 9 Anesthesia Equipment Service: An Organized and Cooperative Approach to Maintenance and Repair

Videotape No. 10 Margin of Safety: Monitoring the Neuromuscular junction

Videotape No. 11 Emergence: Patient Safety in the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit

Videotape No. 12 The impaired Practitioner

Videotape No. 13 Safety Considerations in Obstetrical Anesthesia

Videotape No. 14 Anatomy of an Anesthesia Machine

Videotape No. 15 The Difficult Airway, Part One: The Algorithm

Videotape No. 16 The Difficult Airway, Part Two: Management -The Cricothyroid Membrane

Dr. Pierce is President of the APSF and Executive Producer of the ASA Patient Safety Videotape Series.