# Talk:Tracheal intubation

I'm working through this article and will post review comments here. I'm also making changes that I hope make it more readable for the general reader. Please examine these changes carefully to ensure I haven't altered the meaning (in a bad way), introduced some grammatical error, added unsourced material, or otherwise worsened things. Please feel free to undo anything you're not happy with. Colin°Talk 19:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


### Indications
I believe intubation is also used to deliver anaesthetic gases. Could you mention this as an indication? Under what circumstances would a general anaesthetic be given without intubation? Would it be for short-duration procedures, does it depend on the agents used, etc? Colin°Talk 19:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I have included the statement "Perhaps the most common indication for tracheal intubation is for the placement of a conduit through which nitrous oxide or volatile anesthetics may be administered." in the ==Indications== section. The new ==Alternatives== section addresses the circumstances under which a general anesthetic might be administered without tracheal intubation (inline citations are forthcoming...). I have not gone into too much detail here, as I am trying to avoid getting off-topic (turning this into an article about general anesthesia). DiverDave (talk) 14:48, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
The Airway obstruction paragraph has no inline citation. Generally every paragraph should have a citation at the end, and of course more in between if necessary. I'll assume a citation refers to all the text preceding it up to the previous citation. It is very important that none of the text is unsourced and based solely on your own knowledge and experience. Reviewers at FAC will be strict on WP:V and WP:NOR (to the degree they are able to check it). Colin°Talk 19:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The Airway obstruction subsection now has an inline citation, from a respectable textbook. DiverDave (talk) 14:48, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I've eliminated some of the "should"s in the section. WP doesn't give medical advice, but it can document guidance. Colin°Talk 19:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you; your help is greatly appreciated. DiverDave (talk) 14:48, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


### General
The article needs a section near/at the top that explains the procedure. It is done briefly in the lead but the body should also cover this in detail. Without this, the many of the issues noted in the following sections are hard to appreciate. Colin°Talk 20:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
The article needs a (sub)section on alternatives. Some of these are indicated in the Special situations/emergencies section but I think they need to be drawn out as several areas mention the need to consider alternatives. By devoting a section to this, we can explain the situations where TI is used or not used and give an idea of how often and when this occurs. Perhaps an "Alternatives" section could follow the Indications section. Colin°Talk 20:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


### Scopes
I want to know why folk use straight or curved blades. What are the advantages?
Can you expand on the advantages of the fiberoptic and video scopes. I think the Laryngoscopy article can be used to list brand names and details of such so I've removed them from here. If any of these models offer particular advantages, then describe what is different about them and why this helps. Just naming a brand isn't particularly enlightening. Colin°Talk 20:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
The last sentence of the Larygnoscopes section seems to include devices that aren't larygoscopes and one of them is a stylet which is covered in the next section. Could this sentence be moved. It would be good to have a short lead paragraph in the Equipment section before jumping into the Laryngoscopes subsection. Such a lead could give an overview of the various equipment. Colin°Talk 20:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


### Tracheal tubes
"Various types of endotracheal tubes are available that have endobronchial as well as endotracheal lumens." We need to explain "endobronchial". I'm guessing the end(s?) of this tube goes into the bronchi (i.e. into one or other lungs). How far? Also, I'm getting a bit confused as to what "lumens" are. I thought the lumen was just a word for the hollow bit of a tube. So how can the hollow bit reach the bronchi if the tube doesn't also? Is this a tube that splits in two? Why does it say "as well as"? Does it have several openings along its length (one in the trachea and one in the bronchi)? Colin°Talk 21:20, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


### Complications
The list of minor and serious complications had some repetition, which I've removed, but perhaps it still needs a little rework to better group/rank into common/rare minor/serious or some other useful arrangement. Colin°Talk 18:24, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Colin asked me to have a peek at this article. On a first skim reading I find it very informative and reasonably comprehensible for a doctor from an unrelated field of medicine. But the point is whether we can make it good enough to be featured quality for the general public.
Some general comments currently, before I do a closer read:

I would recommend moving the "predicting difficulty" section down, as it relies heavily on what follows. (I know that in daily practice the assessment would precede intubation, but that is not the point)
Some sources are probably not WP:MEDRS compatible, particularly the 2 patents and a self-published book by Stephen Hawking.
Given that a hybrid sourcing system is used, it would be nice to have clickable hyperlinks between the reference and source (as we have done on dengue fever)
The concept of pulmonary aspiration should be clarified on first use, not halfway through the article
I will happily provide ongoing input if this is deemed helpful. JFW | T@lk 23:45, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm way off course, totally lay and have gone further (to Dengue fever), but I have to stop to ask why there are unnumbered footnotes (listed at end, not "in-line" I think it's officially called; though numbers do show up in the text, just aren't linked (by corresponding numbers) to the notes) in this article. (In the fever article, for one more example amongst the hund er thousands of articles I've seen and worked on, I've never seen this format.) Why? Thanks. Cheers. (And I am now (hopefully more or less) back on course, having found the "subscription required" labeling protocol. Thanks again.) Swliv (talk) 16:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your question, Swliv. What an incredible headache it has been to get the "Notes" and "References" sections to where they are today! What you see today is the result of the collected input of many editors, most of whom (such as Chris Capoccia, Materialscientist, Sasata, Circeus, Jmh649, and Colin) are far more experienced than myself. In most cases with this article, clicking on a numbered inline citation will take you to either a journal article or a chapter of a textbook in the ==Notes== section. In the case of a textbook, the name of the first editor is hyperlinked. If you click on this hyperlink, you will be directed to the corresponding textbook in the ==References== section.
For example, clicking on inline citation #1 will get you to:
Benumof (2007), Ezri T and Warters RD, Chapter 15: Indications for tracheal intubation, pp. 371–8
Clicking on the "Benumof" hyperlink will get you to:
Benumof, JL, ed. (2007). Benumof's Airway Management: Principles and Practice (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Mosby-Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-323-02233-0.
I hope this answers your question. Regards, DiverDave (talk) 03:52, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. Now frankly I'm sorry to say I can't see what my question was. It all looks like it makes sense now, and did then. Aargh. Can't believe I was just confused by "Notes" v. "References". If I figure out my question again later, I'll be back. Thanks again. Swliv (talk) 22:24, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I started an article on Andranik Ovassapian. He is cited in this article and could be linked to it. I am not sure how to add an author link with the referencing format used in the article.TJMSmith (talk) 17:26, 1 May 2020 (UTC)