Critical Matters

In a recent episode, Dr. Sergio Zanotti discussed the 2026 iteration of the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines. In this episode, the discussion continues, focusing on important aspects beyond clinical guidelines. He is joined by Dr. Andre Kalil, a physician specializing in critical care and infectious diseases. Dr. Kalil is a Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Director of Transplant Infectious Diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Dr. Kalil is a prolific author and has participated in several IDSA/SCCM Clinical Guidelines and has written extensively on critical care and infectious disease topics.
Additional resources:
Surviving sepsis campaign 2026 guidelines | Critical Matters
Sepsis. M Singer, et al. The Lancet 2026.
Surviving Sepsis Campaign: International Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2026. Crit Care Medicine 2026.
Subphenotypes and phenotypes to resolve sepsis heterogeneity: hype or hope? Andre Kalil, et al. Intensive Care Med 2025.
Early Goal-Directed Therapy for Sepsis: A Novel Solution for Discordant Survival Outcomes in Clinical Trials. Andre Kalil, et al. Crit Care Med 2017.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Life Depends on It. By Ian Leslie.

This episode was originally posted Feb. 24, 2022.
The last 24 months have pushed ICU teams around the world to their limits. As we move forward, we need to heal and rebuild our critical care teams. Healthcare more than ever will require ICU teams to perform at the highest levels and to continuously innovate to deliver high-value care to the sickest of the sick. In this episode, Dr. Sergio Zanotti discusses the elements of The Fearless ICU. He is joined by Amy Edmondson (@AmyCEdmondson), the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. For the last two decades, she has studied the elements of high-performing teams in complex environments.
Additional Resources:
Faculty page for Amy Edmondson. A great jumping point to her vast body of work.
How to turn a group of strangers into a team. TED Talk by Amy Edmondson
The Fearless Organization. By Amy Edmondson.
What Google Learned in its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. New York Times.
Implementing New Practices: An Empirical Study of Organizational Learning in Hospital Intensive Care Units. A. Edmondson et al. Management Science 2007.
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
Get Rid of the Performance Review! By Samuel Culbert.
Mindset. By Carol Dweck.

In this episode, Dr. Sergio Zanotti discusses the care of older adults in the ICU. He is joined by Dr. Lauren Ferrante, a pulmonary critical care physician in the medical intensive care unit at Yale New Haven Hospital. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and serves as Director, Operations Core, at the Yale Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center. Dr. Ferrante is the lead author of the recently published “Society of Critical Care Medicine Guidelines on Caring for Older Adults in the ICU."
Additional resources:
Society of Critical Care Medicine Guidelines on Care for Older Adults in the ICU. Crit Care Medicine 2026
Society of Critical Care Medicine Guidelines on Care for Older Adults in the ICU. Implementation Toolkit
American Geriatric Society Beers Criteria (Pocket Guide)
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Correspondent. By Virginia Evans

In this episode, Dr. Sergio Zanotti discusses arterial catheters in shock through the lens of the recently published EVERDAC trial. He is joined by Dr. Gregoire Muller, a critical care physician in the Department of Intensive Care Medicine and Resuscitation at the University Hospital Center of Orléans, Orléans, France. Dr. Muller is an accomplished clinician and researcher. He is the principal investigator/lead author of the EVERDAC clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Additional resources:
Deferring Arterial Catheterization in Critically Ill Patients with Shock. EVERDAC Trial. New Engl J Med 2025.
Arterial lines in the ICU: A call for rigorous controlled trials. CHEST 2014.
Hemodynamic monitoring in shock and implications for management. International Consensus Conference, Paris, France 2006. Intensive Care Med 2007.
Noninvasive BP monitoring in the critically ill: time to abandon the arterial catheter? CHEST 2018.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. By David Allen.

In this, Dr. Sergio Zanotti discusses the management of invasive candidiasis in critically ill patients. Invasive candidiasis is frequent in critically ill patients and is associated with high mortality and morbidity. He is joined by Dr. Max Adelman, a practicing critical care and infectious disease physician at Houston Methodist Hospital. Dr. Adelman is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Adelman’s clinical interests include bacteremia, hospital-acquired infections, immunocompromised hosts, multidrug-resistant organisms, and septic shock.
Additional Resources:
Invasive candidiasis in critically ill patients: Fundamental concepts and future directions. Perez MA, Hoffman WJ, Perez JC, and Adelman MH. CHEST 2026.
Empirical Micafungin Treatment and Survival Without Invasive Fungal Infection in Adults With ICU-Acquired Sepsis, Candida Colonization, and Multiple Organ Failure: The EMPIRICUS Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA 2016.
Global guideline for the diagnosis and management of candidiasis: an initiative of the ECMM in cooperation with ISHAM and ASM. THE LANCET- Infectious Diseases 2025.
Books and Music mentioned in this episode:
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. By Oliver Bukerman.
Lonesome Drifter. By Charlie Crockett.