Preface

When confronted with a challenging clinical problem, help can frequently be found in textbooks or a search of the literature. Unfortunately, for questions about tracheotomies, the resources were either parceled in multiple diverse sources or buried in the lore of different subspecialties. A wide range of healthcare providers treat patients with a surgical airway and a mix of different providers must be ready to obtain or manage a surgical airway in an emergency. With the increasing prevalence of patients with tracheotomies, a book written from a concensus approach by the different healthcare providers encountering them was needed. The result is this text, useful when caring for anyone with a surgical airway. This book provides a concise but comprehensive summary of current treatments and techniques. In each chapter, the authors are drawn from different specialties to provide a comprehensive view of each topic covered. Sample clinical cases are described to provide context. While each chapter can be used independently for specific topics, the book also serves as a complete resource for anyone confronted with uncommon clinical situations that can arise in people with surgical airways.