Airway Anaesthesia

The airway anaesthesia component of the curriculum overlaps significantly with areas such as ENT,  maxillofacial surgery and to a lesser extent thoracic surgery (particularly one lung ventilation).

This is reflected in previous CRQ/SAQ papers, with few questions purely on airway anaesthesia. Rather, it has formed a component of questions on (predominantly) ENT-related topics. Exceptions to this were a question on difficult extubation in the March 2019, one on tracheostomies in September 2019 and a mischievous CRQ question on airway anatomy in September 2020.

Airway topics include:

• Difficult intubation
• Unrecognised oesophageal intubation
• Coughing during extubation
• Difficult extubation
• Awake tracheal intubation


• Tubeless surgery
• Jet ventilation
• THRIVE
• Tracheostomy (from the ICM Respiratory section)
• Ultrasound of the neck (in brief)