The Long Journey Home
Mortality as a Trial Endpoint
Critical Care Reviews Blog 10 | August 26th, 2026 | Rob Mac Sweeney
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The Long Journey Home
Mortality, clinical trials and the race to the South Pole
The Black Flag
The first sign of failure was a dark speck on a white horizon.
At first, it could have been anything. Then it resolved into a flag.
It was black.
On 16 January 1912, Robert Falcon Scott and his...
The Battle of the Pips
The Battle of the Pips
When nothing happens, how do we know what we prevented?
Critical Care Reviews Blog 11 | September 7th, 2026 | Rob Mac Sweeney
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The Faulty Radar
The ships that could not find the enemy blamed their radar.1
Around them, American warships were opening fire. It was 26 July 1943, near the Aleutian Islands. A Japanese force was expected. Radar echoes, the “pips”, appeared to confirm its...
Why Physiology Is Never Enough
Why Physiology Is Never Enough: The Siren Song of Critical Care
The MARCH Trial
Critical Care Reviews Blog 8 | July 12th, 2026 | Rob Mac Sweeney
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The Music Before the Rocks
The Sirens did not lure sailors because they sang badly. They were dangerous because they sang beautifully.
In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus knows that the Sirens’ song will be irresistible. He does not pretend he is immune...
The Nothing to Lose Fallacy
The Nothing-to-Lose Fallacy
The COCA Trial
Critical Care Reviews Blog 9 | July 25th, 2026 | Rob Mac Sweeney
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The Machine To Build the Station
Chris Hadfield was travelling at eight kilometres a second, 400 kilometres above the Earth. Beneath him, the planet raced silently past. Beside him waited fifteen years of engineering that would determine the future construction of the International Space Station.
In...
Vitamin C - A Love Story
VITAMIN C - A Love Story
Vitamin C in Critical Illness
Critical Care Reviews Blog 5 | October 17th, 2025 | Rob Mac Sweeney
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Image: Shutterstock | Medical-R
Vitamin C – A Love Story
Every generation of clinicians inherits a remedy that seems to promise more than mere biology should allow. For our forebears at sea it was citrus, the difference between life and death on a latish eighteenth‑century deck. For...
Faith, Evidence and the Stars
Faith, Evidence and the Stars:
The ANDROMEDA‑SHOCK‑2 Trial
Capillary Refill Testing in Septic Shock
Critical Care Reviews Blog 6 | November 7th, 2025 | Rob Mac Sweeney
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Image: Shutterstock | Wirestock Creators
“And yet it moves.” Galileo’s whispered defiance captured a paradox that has animated science for four centuries: belief colliding with observation, dogma yielding—slowly, sometimes...
The Last Drop
The Last Drop
The REMAP CAP Ivermectin for COVID-19 Trial
The Science of Stopping
Critical Care Reviews Blog 7 | May 13th, 2026 | Rob Mac Sweeney
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Figure 1: Junius Brutus Stearns, Washington on his Deathbed, 1851. Oil on canvas | Wikimedia.
On the morning of December 14th, 1799, George Washington was not abandoned by medicine. He was surrounded by it. His physicians bled him repeatedly,...
The Etomidate Conundrum
The Etomidate Conundrum
Etomidate for Rapid Sequence Intubation in the Critically Ill.
Critical Care Reviews Blog 4 | September 4th, 2025
Rob Mac Sweeney
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The Etomidate Conundrum
Induction for rapid sequence intubation (RSI) in the critically ill often feels like the swing of a...
Blog Archive
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CCR Blog
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2026
The Battle of the Pips
The guns opened fire in the darkness.
Some ships saw the enemy. Others saw nothing at all.
Far away, in a paediatric intensive care unit, a syringe fills with fluid—and a feed is stopped.
The decision feels careful. Responsible. Safe.
By morning, no disaster has occurred.
But what, exactly, has been proven?
Added September 7th
The Long Journey Home
The first sign of failure was a black flag on a white horizon. Robert Falcon Scott had reached the South Pole, but the outcome that ultimately defined his...



