About the Letters

My airway training was uneven. Sometimes I got it right. Sometimes I learned the hard way. Looking back on that path is what made me want to build something better for those who come after me, a path that amplifies your abilities while being honest about our limits as humans and as clinicians, so we can move beyond them rather than pretend 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, real guardrails that protect patients when conditions are chaotic, and performance matters most. That belief is what led to the creation of The Protected Airway. 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 be better than we were.

Looking back, if I had the chance to start over, I would want the current version of me to speak directly to intern 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. With a new class of interns arriving, I thought that, in the tradition of Rainer Maria Rilke, I would sit at an old typewriter and write a series of letters. 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 care.