We start by getting oriented. What is actually set on the ventilator? What is the patient actually receiving? And which numbers deserve your attention?

We’ll break down ventilator settings and monitored values, oxygenation versus ventilation, ABGs, FiO₂, PEEP, respiratory rate, tidal volume, minute ventilation, pressures, and the basic information sitting in front of you on the ventilator screen.

You’ll also start using the Ventilator Simulator with rapid-fire cases that ask you to make one important call: oxygenation problem, ventilation problem, or both?

Simulator: Oxygenation and Ventilation Drills

Now we look at how the patient and ventilator actually work together.

Who started the breath? Who is doing the work? What support is the ventilator providing? What happens when the patient stops breathing? And what can pressures and waveforms tell you about what is happening breath to breath?

We’ll work through triggering, spontaneous and mandatory breaths, common modes, pressure and volume, work of breathing, backup ventilation, peak versus plateau pressure, basic waveforms, and common patient-ventilator asynchrony.

The goal is not to memorize every mode on every ventilator. It is to understand the mechanics underneath them.

Simulator: Ventilator Support Lab

Live session: Clinical cases and Ventilator modes

This is where we move from reading the ventilator to making decisions.

We’ll work through patients with oxygenation problems, ventilation problems, and changing respiratory physiology. You’ll explore how FiO₂, PEEP, respiratory rate, tidal volume, and other changes affect the patient, including what can happen elsewhere in the body when you change ventilator support.

We’ll also get into lung-protective ventilation, predicted body weight, airway pressures, air trapping and auto-PEEP, and why the right intervention depends on understanding the problem you are actually trying to solve.

Then you’ll put it together in full clinical cases where your decisions change what happens next.

Simulator: Intervening Clinical Cases

WEEK 4: WHEN THE VENTILATOR STARTS YELLING

Alarms are where everything from the previous three weeks comes together.

We’ll work through high-pressure and low-pressure alarms, sudden deterioration, airway obstruction, secretions, changing resistance and compliance, circuit problems, pneumothorax, and other reasons a previously stable ventilated patient might suddenly look very different.

Most importantly, we’ll practise a systematic approach that starts with the patient rather than the alarm: Is the patient stable? What changed? Is it the patient, the tube, or the machine?

The Intensive finishes by bringing the ventilator back into the bigger clinical picture. Trends, disease progression, hemodynamics, sedation, metabolic demand, and the patient's overall clinical course all influence what you see on the screen.

Live session: Clinical Cases and Putting It Together

Simulator: Alarm Management