The Difficult Airway Course: Critical Care™ (Nov 13 - 15, 2026)

The Difficult Airway Course: Critical Care™ is organized by Airway Management Education Center (AMEC) and will be held from Nov 13 - 15, 2026, at Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, San Diego, California, United States of America.

Description:
The Difficult Airway Course: Critical Care™ focuses exclusively on the airway challenges posed by critically ill inpatients. This advanced course is designed for intensivists and for hospitalists who are responsible for emergency airway management of acute inpatients.

Build mastery and confidence in:

• How to predict a difficult airway and prevent a failed airway
• When - and when NOT - to use medications
• How to perform an awake intubation
• Tube exchange and extubation of the difficult airway
• Practical strategies in crisis management and human factors

Course Objectives:
Upon successful completion of the course, the participant will be able to:

• Express a clear conceptual framework for Difficult Airway management in the critical care and inpatient setting.
• Identify a rapid and systematic approach for the management of the difficult and failed airway.
• Recognize devices and techniques needed to manage the difficult and failed airway; and when and how to use them.
• Be able to perform a cricothyrotomy.
• Be able to assess and manage a difficult airway extubation.
• Identify airway management techniques for treating highly infectious viral patients.

Highlights include:

• Front of neck access / cricothyrotomy
• Code Airway™ stations
• Preparation for challenging acute inpatient scenarios, including:
• Upper airway obstruction
• Airway management in the massively obese patient
• Tracheostomy issues, including accidental dislodgement
• Agitated hemodynamically unstable patient who self-extubates
• The bleeding, traumatized, and vomit-filled airway
• The can’t intubate/can’t ventilate situation
• Instruction by a world-class faculty of airway experts
• Dynamic and interactive learning environment

Hands-on in Crucial Airway Techniques:

• Percutaneous and surgical cricothyrotomy
• Video laryngoscopy
• Awake intubation
• Flexible bronchoscopy and laryngeal mask ventilation
• Optically enhanced laryngoscopy
• Extraglottic devices
• Flexible endoscopic intubation
• Pediatric airway skills
• Techniques for the obese patient