Air, Water, Fire, Ice, and Bananas: A New Way to Recall the Hs and Ts of Resuscitation

Despite all your training, does your mind ever go blank trying to recall the "Hs&Ts", i.e. the reversible causes of cardiac arrest, or peri-arrest during a resuscitation? My adrenaline kicks in and my mind goes blank, until I developed a new way -- a more visual way to recall them than simply letters. It is called "Air, Water, Fire, Ice, & Bananas". Please see the following link for the visual I created: https://www.medicinewithmegan.com/home/hsts For the H's: think of the elements or super heroes using the elements (e.g. Avatar: The Last Airbender). Air represents hypoxia. Water represents hypovolemia. Fire represents "burning" or acidemia (hydrogen ions). Ice represents hypothermia. Bananas represent hyper- or hypo-kalemia. For the T's: there are 2 heart and 2 lung things. 2 are clot related (MI/PE) and 2 are related to other obstructive causes (tamponade/tension pneumothorax). Tox we have to recall, but the visual helps. On the website, the first image depicts how to recall the differential visually, but the second image includes diagnostics (in pink) and intervention (in blue). I'll make the argument that even if you cannot recall the differential there are really only three diagnostic tools (in pink) you need to investigate each of the reversible causes: (1) vitals, (2) iStat labs, (3) a good POCUS. I have now given this talk to my residency and medical student small groups and locally at CalACEP and have gotten the feedback to share much more broadly! I have gotten emails from other residents at other academic centers that they now save the website page as a quick link on their phone and pull it up on shift during a resuscitation. Would love to share nation-wide at SAEM IGNITE! The 5-minute talk I have in mind will be structured: setting the scene, talking through the visual and how it is used to recall each H&T, and how three diagnostic tools can help you address each one. Here is a link for the completed presentation. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iR-shr0XOLO5UjM7JNV4xeKrLFsstZtl/view?usp=sharing