Lemmingaid

Celebrate good times, come on.…  Yes it’s Kool-and-the-Gang time as the new sepsis definition is unveiled for our delight and delectation. No longer, we hope, will someone who has mildly exerted themselves fulfil the criteria of sepsis. For those who are acutely confused by the new diagnosis and the shifting (and increasingly softer) recommendations of Surviving Sepsis there is even more good news; new guidance in the form of Surviving Sepsis is in progress. The latter is an innovative collaboration between the Great and the Good in our profession who got it wrong in the first place, and Bear Grylls who is now legally decreed to be involved and affiliated with anything implying survival or surviving. A series of educational/promotional films will be available showing Bear surviving critical illness in a number of extreme environments – such as South East London. The films will be broadcast on the new NHS channel – NetPrix. But if that isn’t enough, in order to inform us of what we should be doing/saying and how we should be behaving, the sepsis bazaar will be coming once again to a town near you in the immediate future. No conference, meeting, round table (or square table) discussion will be complete without at least a synapse of the sepsis Great and Good gracing us with their presence.

“Gravy train” you say – don’t be so cynical …

For those who got it right back in the 2000s but were ignored or disavowed – we salute you.

Sepsis isn’t the only concept undergoing new definitions; a new think tank has been established to review and redefine the concept of ‘weekend’. Throughout recorded history, Saturdays and Sundays have been considered to be the ‘weekend’; however, following considerable political pressure, a panel of experts has met to examine the feasibility of reclassifying ‘weekend’ as 23:00–23:59 on a Sunday. This is clearly an important issue and is reported to be central to Mr Cameron’s renegotiated deal in Europe. The ‘Brexit’ camp is pushing strongly in support of the new definition along with a new 10-day metric week. Two of the proposed three new days will be named after iconic internationally recognised figures: Hunt day and Noddy day. The name of the third new day will be decided after a national referendum – following which someone in Whitehall will make a unilateral, illogical, totally ill-informed and deeply unpopular decision on the basis that the Government’s 2015 election result fully endorses all subsequent policies regardless of how stupid they are.

Meanwhile, rumours abound that a group of vigilante doctors have broken into one of our Health Minister’s private homes and have abducted his puppy. The latter is being held hostage under threat of entry into a sepsis study (using the new criteria, of course) unless the Minister reverses his decision on the new Junior Doctors’ contract. An official spokesperson for the Health Minister’s office could neither confirm nor deny the break in and abduction but did state that ‘there is no puppy currently residing in any of the Health Minister’s many residences or private medical facilities’. The JICS editorial office was unable to contact a representative of the vigilante group, which calls itself ‘Reform or the Puppy Gets It’, on account of not having the group’s phone number.

Back in the real world, the NHS is spiralling into oblivion (a situation that has not gone unnoticed by the international and private health care communities), the Middle East is in crisis (again) and oil prices are crippling national economies.

On a positive note, the price of truffles is at an all time high ….

 …. and a new series of TOWIE is on its way.

 …. and intensive care is about to become the most profitable and coolest specialty ever. At first glance, the latter might not seem intuitive; however, the results of extremely dodgy statistical modelling of intensive care medical staffing suggest that by 2031 there will only be 37 intensive care consultants in the United Kingdom – one in England, four in Northern Ireland, three in Wales, and 32 in Scotland (yes, I know that makes 40, but as I said – it was extremely dodgy modelling). The reasons for this are multiple:

England won’t have NHS hospitals any more (they will have been CQCd to death.

The average life expectancy of an intensive care consultant will be 57 years – so pension issues won’t be a problem.

Britain’s exit from Europe in 2016 will result in an inability to import cheap health care workers from Europe. Apparently the lack of State pension, healthcare, education or legal protection for migrant workers who haven’t worked in the United Kingdom for at least 21 years isn’t an attractive proposition.

The average training for an intensive care consultant will be three terms (having been introduced into the revised GCSE curriculum – the aim being that 40 years of NHS employment can be fitted in between Lower Sixth form and death).

Seven- or eight-figure salaries are predicted, as intensive care will be only available to the rich (with US-style up-front payments only – so no more bad debt!) and all intensivists will be self-employed and hiring themselves out to the highest bidders.

Intensivists will be bestowed with demigod status and treated like the rock legends they are.

A lecturing intensivist will require festival-like facilities to accommodate the hoards of adoring fans as the former smashes up the lectern, kicks the projector at the security and stage dives into the doting audience.

There’ll be a trail of drugs – mainly propofol.

It’ll be a short life, but it will be an absolute blast along the way

The memoirs of an intensivist will soon read like those of the great Jim Morrison; our lives will leave a wake of the extreme and what’s not to like about that. So come on, as those other rock legends Kool and his chums suggested – let’s celebrate.

Wood and Trees

The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent, and should not be attributed to the Journal of the Intensive Care Society, the Intensive Care Society, the Editors, or the Publisher, SAGE.