Course Review - RSM HANA 2024

Last updated on Sep 5, 2024

The Royal Society of Medicine hosts multidisciplinary, specialist and general education events drawing on the expertise of leading experts in over fifty specialist areas of medicine.

The Anaesthesia Section - the bit we really care about - provides a forum for discussion of all branches and sub-specialties of anaesthesia, with regular meetings covering the science, art and politics of perioperative and patient-centred care focusing on historical and current research and practices.

The HANA (Head and Neck Anaesthesia) conference is a long standing annual meeting in central London, bringing together some of the best in the business.

And we decided to check it out.

Anaestheasier's Review

8.5/10

Would definitely attend again

Location and Timings

Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole St, Marylebone, London, W1G 0AE, United Kingdom
9:00am to 5:00pm

Cost

£105 standard entry ticket

Educational aims for the course

Head and neck anaesthesia, understanding key factors and elements of controversy within approaching and managing related conditions
The methods to manage laryngeal obstruction and understand it
The management of emergency airway

Guess who's back

This conference has traditionally been a face-to-face (head and neck to head and neck?) affair, so when COVID-19 entered the chat, it was decided that all future conferences would be put on hold, until such time as they could return in person.

Having been there, done that, and gotten the t-shirts with virtual conferences, I don’t mind that at all!

With face-to-face back on the cards, 2024 was the year of return for the RSM HANA conference – and it was well worth the trip to the capital!

Prior to the conference we were sent the agenda of the day, as well as a link to a reading list suggested by the key speakers of the day.

Whilst not essential reading, I found this very helpful to give some context to talks, especially as a non-expert trainee, and I definitely learned more on the day as a result.

The day itself was split into 3 main sections:

“Education in Head and Neck Anaesthesia”
“Anaesthesia in Different Situations”

and the reassuringly titled

“Complications and Disasters”

I found the topics to be insightful and compelling, with a variety of expert speakers from all across the UK (and Europe).

I particularly enjoyed that although the speakers were predominantly Head and Neck anaesthetists, there were also talks and various tidbits from other specialties, such as ENT surgeons and paediatrics, to give views and opinions from the other side of the drapes.

Key topics of debate included:

Thresholds for awake tracheal intubation
How to train anaesthetists in this practice
How best to approach airway disasters
How to subsequently disseminate the learning from them
Whether or not there is still a place for needle cricothyroidotomy in modern anaesthetic practice

A significant benefit for me was that the talks were limited to 20-30 minutes, with maximum of three in a row before being resuscitated with coffee and carbohydrates.

I thought this was an excellent approach, and it meant I could genuinely focus on each talk and walked away having learned a great deal.

I have struggled at a multitude of other conferences where talks go on far too long, my caffeine tank runs low, resulting in involuntary, bilateral drooping of the eyelids.

The Food

Speaking of positives, it’s worth mentioning here that the lunch was absolutely superb - as is always the case at RSM events!

So if you’re the sort of person who makes conference attendance decisions based on food (no judging here) you’re onto a winner at HANA!

Bragging Contest

The day ended with an entire section devoted entirely to trainee anaesthetists.

The aptly named “Bragging Contest” invited trainees to share their most interesting Head and Neck Anaesthesia cases with the meeting, with prizes being awarded for the top 3 presentations, and all being able to write “Oral presentation at a national conference” on their CVs.