Peri-Operative Management of a Difficult Airway in a Resource Limited Environment

Abstract

Airway management is an essential skill that is relevant to the practice of medicine especially with regards specialties such as anesthesia, intensive care and emergency medicine. This vital skill can be made more challenging in an austere environment with limited facilities and equipment. Being pre-informed on the peculiarity of each patient, developing and mastering necessary skills through regular trainings and having a pre- outlined care plan based on available resources in the immediate environment can mitigate against some of the possible challenges in such environment. Hence, the pre-operative assessment of a patient with a difficult airway is an integral part of the peri-operative workup that helps to predict potential problems, develop a management plan thereby avoiding an unanticipated difficult airway as much as possible and inadvertently preparing for an unanticipated difficult airway in rare instances.