Advanced Airway Management Refresher Workshop

Introduction

The Advanced Airway Management Refresher Workshop is a condensed, 7.5-hour continuing education program designed for personnel with prior airway management knowledge/skills or prior graduates of the Advanced and Difficult Airway Management Workshop (Initial, 16-hour course) to renew and reinforce their airway management knowledge and psychomotor skills. The refresher emphasizes current evidence, updated equipment, and hands-on simulation over didactic review, allowing returning participants to maintain competency and remain current with evolving best practice.

The workshop uses medical simulators to reinforce decision-making and skill retention. Content review and case work include direct airway trauma, multiple trauma, foreign body in the airway, status asthmaticus, increased ICP, pulmonary edema, and failed airways, with continued use of waveform capnography, specialized bag-valve devices that restrict rate/volume/pressure, uncuffed supraglottic airways, video laryngoscopy, rapid sequence intubation with paralytics, endotracheal tube inducers, aids for direct laryngoscopy, and review of ventilator management. Participants manage cases using ALS manikins and Difficult Airway simulators, both individually and in small groups.

Prerequisite

Successful completion of the Advanced and Difficult Airway Management Workshop (Initial, 16-hour course) or an equivalent level of knowledge and course work accepted by course faculty (or participant’s medical director), within the preceding 2 years. Participants outside this window should attend the Initial Workshop.

Intended Audience

The Advanced Airway Management Refresher Workshop is intended for healthcare providers who do not perform advanced airway interventions on a daily/weekly basis, including Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, Advanced Paramedics, Paramedics, and Flight Nurses.

Workshop Length: 7.5 hours of instructional time (Refresher Workshop)
Workshop Size: 6 student minimum/24 student maximum (6:1 student-instructor ratio)
Materials Provided to Students:
  1. Current Concepts in Advanced Airway Management, Christie, ATREC Inc, 2026.
Certification Type: Course Completion Certificate (7.5 hours CAPCE Accredited)

Pre-Workshop Review Materials:

  1. Current Concepts in Advanced Airway Management, Christie, 2026.

  2. Capnography for Monitoring End-Tidal CO2 in Hospital and Pre-hospital Settings: A Health Technology Assessment. Richardson, M, Moulton K, Rabb D, et al.; Ottawa (ON): Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health; 2016 Mar. (CADTH Health Technology Assessment, No. 142.) Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK362376/

  3. Current Concepts in the Management of the Difficult Airway; Dr. CA Hagberg M.D. FACS; www.anesthesiologynews.com/download/Airway_AN0513_WM.pdf

  4. Hickey SM, Sankari A, Giwa AO. Mechanical Ventilation. [Updated 2024 Mar 30]. In: StatPearls. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2026 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539742/

  5. Critical Care Time, #61: Ventilator Basics; Nov 2, 2025; https://www.criticalcaretime.com/episodes/vents

  6. Basic Vent Modes MADE EASY - Ventilator Settings Reviewed; ICU Advantage; https://youtu.be/E5uLM41URmE?si=Xrrc5jp866RPcF3y

  7. Mechanical Ventilation Explained - Ventilator Settings & Modes (Respiratory Failure); MedCram - Medical Lectures Explained CLEARLY; Professor Roger Seheult, MD; https://youtu.be/gk_Qf-JAL84?si=zprtxf4SRc9WknFL

Pre-Course Open Resource Pretest:

The participant must complete a pretest prior to the day of the workshop, with a score of 85% or greater. Participants must submit the pretest to the instructor staff upon arrival at the workshop.

Instructional Format:

Focused review lecture/discussion, skills-station lab, case-based simulation, and individual competency verification.

Participation Expectations:

In order to receive continuing education units (CEUs), a registered participant must be present for all scheduled hours and be engaged in the interactive discussions, case reviews, and knowledge evaluation.

Participants will successfully:

  1. Complete a simulated ventilation with a BVM device that is designed to restrict rate, volume, and pressure of ventilation.

  2. Complete a simulation utilizing a Supraglottic Airway with no inflatable cuff in a cardiac arrest.

  3. Complete a simulation utilizing a video laryngoscope to intubate a patient with a difficult airway.

  4. Complete the GEMR Endotracheal Intubation in Cardiac Arrest Skill Documentation Form.

  5. Complete a simulation of a difficult airway patient being intubated with a systematic approach and medication assist.

  6. Complete a simulation utilizing the Suction-Assisted Laryngoscopy and Airway Decontamination (SALAD) technique.

  7. Provide a ventilator strategy for the patient presented.

  8. Complete a Case Scenario Simulation as a team member and/or team leader.

Course Completion:

Having met the Participation Expectations listed above, a participant will receive a Course Completion Certificate indicating the respective refresher workshop hours completed. It is recommended that the participant also retain this Syllabus as further documentation to professional certification/licensure agencies or employers of content, objectives, outcomes, and assessments.

Objectives

Educational content covered in this refresher workshop includes an updated review of current science and best practices on:

  1. Provision of ventilatory support for a patient with positive pressure ventilation.

  2. Provision of advanced airway techniques to assure a patent airway, including use of iGel Airway, LMA, and Endotracheal Tube Airway.

  3. Provision of patient monitoring and physiological assessment through the use of waveform capnography.

  4. Review of optimal airway management for the crashing patient in the emergency medicine environment.

  5. Prevention of complications seen with intubation of the critically ill.

  6. Appropriate initial ventilator settings to avoid patient deterioration.

  7. Reinforcement of a strategy for airway management which does not adversely impact the patient's physiologic state.

Outcomes

Participants who successfully complete this refresher workshop will be able to:

  1. Recognize a patient with a difficult airway.

  2. Assess the probable cause of the condition using critical thinking.

  3. Develop an approach to the patient's condition.

  4. Demonstrate proper use of a bag valve mask for ventilation at the right rate and volume for the patient.

  5. Demonstrate the use of advanced airway techniques to assure a patent airway, including use of an uncuffed Supraglottic Airway and Endotracheal Tube Airway.

  6. Provide ventilator strategy for patient presented.

  7. Provide evidence-based airway management for the crashing patient in the emergency medicine environment.

Assessments

GEMR Skills Documentation Form completion; faculty-observed skills-station competency confirmation.

Refresher Workshop Schedule:

Total instructional time: 7.5 hours (450 minutes), excluding the lunch break.

0900–0930

Course Introduction, Pre-Test Review, and Updates Since Initial Workshop

Faculty briefly reviews changes in evidence, equipment, and science guidelines from the past two year period, and addresses questions arising from the pre-course review media.
0930–1100

Current Concepts in Advanced Airway Management — Refresher Lecture

Condensed, updated review of core content: RSI pharmacology (ketamine/paralytics), difficult airway mnemonics and algorithms, capnography interpretation, and management of the crashing airway patient.
1100–1110 Break
1110–1315

Skills Stations and Competency Opportunities

Students are broken into six-person groups; each group rotates through the following skills stations for 25 minutes with a 5-minute transition between stations:

  1. Bag Valve Mask ventilation with engineered rate/volume/pressure restriction, and Bag Valve Advanced Airway ventilation during cardiac arrest and SALAD incidents.

  2. Use of an uncuffed Supraglottic Airway in cardiac arrest management.

  3. Video laryngoscopy for endotracheal intubation in the difficult airway patient.

  4. SALAD technique in the crashing patient.
1315–1400 Lunch (on your own)
1400–1600

Current Topics in Advanced Airway Management — Case Simulations

Students remain in their four, six-person groups and rotate through the following interactive case simulations for 25 minutes with a 5-minute transition between stations:

  1. SALAD Patient Case.

  2. Cardiac Arrest Patient Case.

  3. Decompensating Respiratory Disease Patient Case.

  4. Trauma Airway Patient Case.
1600–1650

Individual Skills Competency Check-Off

Faculty individually verifies and documents each participant's competency using the GEMR Endotracheal Intubation in Cardiac Arrest Skill Documentation Form
1650–1700 Break
1700–1745

Round Table Q&A and Course Wrap-Up

Faculty panel answers submitted questions; participants complete the course evaluation and receive direction on obtaining their Course Completion Certificate and Accredited CME hours.

Details: