It is June again, and the new interns are arriving.
They will need time. They will need practice. They will need repetition, feedback, patience, and room to make mistakes before the stakes are real.
But most of all, they will need mentors.
For educators, this is the season to rededicate ourselves to the work of teaching. Not just showing people what we know, but helping them become capable, thoughtful, and safe when conditions are imperfect, and the pressure is real.
For new interns, welcome.
You are beginning a path that will challenge you technically, cognitively, and emotionally. Airway management is not simply a set of procedures. It is a way of thinking, a way of preparing, and a way of acting when a patient needs you to be steady.
About the Letters
My own airway training was uneven.
Sometimes I got it right. Sometimes I learned the hard way. Looking back, I can see how much of my early development depended on chance, the right teacher, the right patient, the right mistake, the right moment of reflection. That path shaped me, but it also made me want to build something better for those who come after me.
That is the idea behind The Protected Airway.
We are trying to create a better path, one that amplifies your abilities while remaining honest about your limits as a human being and as a clinician. Not so you can feel inadequate, but so you can move beyond those limits instead of pretending they do not exist.
For those of us who teach airway management, the work is not about producing perfect technicians. It is about building better training systems. It is about creating real guardrails that protect patients when conditions are chaotic, decisions are compressed, and performance matters most.
What began as an idea has grown into a collaborative effort shaped by a remarkable group of educators, all driven by the same goal: to help you become better than we were.
Looking back, if I had the chance to start over, I would want the current version of myself to speak directly to the intern version of me before training truly began. Not with rules or algorithms, but with a few hard-earned ideas about how this work actually unfolds, and how easily good intentions can drift off course.
Whether I would have listened is another question.
I was stubborn then, as some would argue I still am.
I have always had a fondness for analog things, tools that slow you down and force intention. So, with a new class of interns arriving, I decided to sit at an old typewriter and write a series of “letters” written by a mentor. Imagined in the style of Rainer Marie Rilke and left in a forgotten drawer to be rediscovered in a different age but with all the wisdom that might still hit home today. Perhaps even more so.
They are meant for novices, but they are really for anyone who has ever stepped to the head of the bed and felt the weight of learning airway management.
The first letter is about where to begin.
