r/emergencymedicine • u/Radiant_Alchemist • 22d ago

Advice Will Video Laryngoscopy become the norm?

I love VL. They make standard laryngoscopes look brutal. They're less traumatizing, they give a better view, they have a better first-pass success. Sure you need to learn direct laryngoscopy but let's say in 5 years from now will they be used as routine in OR and ER intubations? Or will they be saved for hard cases?

I've been told that the equipment tends to suck and that we won't have VL as available as in the current department that I'm working so I should stick to Macintosh and McCoy.

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u/skazki354 EM-CCM (PGY5) 22d ago

I don’t think VL is yet considered standard of care, but it probably will be in the next 5-10 years. I’d say unofficially it is standard of care, but it isn’t available everywhere. The studies universally show better first pass success. Some of them don’t show any difference in adverse outcomes, but with patients getting baseline sicker every year, first pass success is more important.

In residency, 85-90% of my intubations were DL. Now almost 100% are VL (the rare exception is equipment failure or unavailability).