The Long Journey Home Mortality as a Trial Endpoint Critical Care Reviews Blog 10    |    August 26th, 2026  |   Rob Mac Sweeney twitter vimeo instagram social This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The Long Journey Home Mortality, clinical trials and the race to the South Pole The Black Flag The first sign of failure was a dark speck on a white horizon. At first, it could have been anything. Then it resolved into a flag. It was black. On 16 January 1912, Robert Falcon Scott and his...

Why Physiology Is Never Enough: The Siren Song of Critical Care The MARCH Trial Critical Care Reviews Blog 8    |    July 12th, 2026  |   Rob Mac Sweeney twitter vimeo instagram social This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The Music Before the Rocks The Sirens did not lure sailors because they sang badly. They were dangerous because they sang beautifully. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus knows that the Sirens’ song will be irresistible. He does not pretend he is immune...

The Nothing-to-Lose Fallacy The COCA Trial Critical Care Reviews Blog 9    |    July 25th, 2026  |   Rob Mac Sweeney twitter vimeo instagram social This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The Machine To Build the Station Chris Hadfield was travelling at eight kilometres a second, 400 kilometres above the Earth. Beneath him, the planet raced silently past. Beside him waited fifteen years of engineering that would determine the future construction of the International Space Station. In...

VITAMIN C - A Love Story Vitamin C in Critical Illness Critical Care Reviews Blog 5    |    October 17th, 2025  |  Rob Mac Sweeney twitter vimeo instagram social This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Image: Shutterstock | Medical-R Vitamin C – A Love Story Every generation of clinicians inherits a remedy that seems to promise more than mere biology should allow. For our forebears at sea it was citrus, the difference between life and death on a latish eighteenth‑century deck. For...

Faith, Evidence and the Stars: The ANDROMEDA‑SHOCK‑2 Trial Capillary Refill Testing in Septic Shock Critical Care Reviews Blog 6    |    November 7th, 2025  |  Rob Mac Sweeney twitter vimeo instagram social This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Image: Shutterstock | Wirestock Creators “And yet it moves.” Galileo’s whispered defiance captured a paradox that has animated science for four centuries: belief colliding with observation, dogma yielding—slowly, sometimes...

The Last Drop The REMAP CAP Ivermectin for COVID-19 Trial The Science of Stopping Critical Care Reviews Blog 7    |    May 13th, 2026  |  Rob Mac Sweeney twitter vimeo instagram social This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Figure 1: Junius Brutus Stearns, Washington on his Deathbed, 1851. Oil on canvas  | Wikimedia. On the morning of December 14th, 1799, George Washington was not abandoned by medicine. He was surrounded by it. His physicians bled him repeatedly,...

The Etomidate Conundrum Etomidate for Rapid Sequence Intubation in the Critically Ill. Critical Care Reviews Blog 4    |    September 4th, 2025 Rob Mac Sweeney twitter vimeo instagram social This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. social                                                           Image: Shutterstock | JFontan The Etomidate Conundrum Induction for rapid sequence intubation (RSI) in the critically ill often feels like the swing of a...

Archive CCR Blog Image: Shutterstock / PeopleImages 2026 The Long Journey Home The first sign of failure was a black flag on a white horizon. Robert Falcon Scott had reached the South Pole, but the outcome that ultimately defined his expedition lay not at the Pole, but on the long journey home. Clinical trials face a similar question: should an intervention be judged by the nearest outcome it can influence, or by whether the patient survives the entire journey? The Long Journey Home explores why mortality is both the most compelling and the most demanding endpoint in critical care...

Critical Care Reviews Blog Exploring the why of critical care trials Critical care trials are fascinating to ponder. Some report findings of benefit with the investigational intervention, many report an inconclusive answer or apparent lack of efficacy. Some report harm. This blog will explore the why of critical care trials - why was this intervention successful, why was this intervention ineffective, why was the trial drug harmful. Join us for a weekly in-depth exploration of the latest major critical care trials. Blog 1 will be released Monday, October 4th The REST Trial ECCO2R...