#About

Pressure Support is an ICU education resource built for trainees preparing for the CICM First Part exam.

It is designed to make core physiology and pharmacology easier to learn by presenting concepts in a clear, curious, and exam-focused format.

#About the author 👨‍⚕️

Hey 👋, my name is Mayu Balachandran and I'm an intensive care trainee based in Melbourne, Australia.

When I started studying for the exam, I found it extremely intimidating. The syllabus is vast, the knowledge is complicated, and the challenge ahead seemed insurmountable.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was having to use multiple resources to answer a single question. Many freely available resources had either the depth or breadth required, but not both.

I made Pressure Support with the aim of turning the large volume of required knowledge into something more organised, accessible, and memorable.

The content reflects what I found useful while trying to learn the material myself: short explanations, structured answers, comparison tables, visual summaries, and exam-style framing.

I hope it helps you spend less time finding information and more time understanding it.

#About Pressure Support 📚

This resource represents the sum total of everything I attempted to learn when studying for the exam. Whether or not I actually remembered everything in these pages on exam day is another story entirely.

Pressure Support is not a definitive guide to the CICM First Part exam. However, when completed, I believe that knowing everything in these pages would put you in a strong position to pass.

The goal is to provide content that is:

• Exam-focused — written with the style of the CICM First Part exam in mind
• Concise — eliminating minutiae that won't help you in the exam or at the bedside
• Structured — organised around syllabus-style questions and learning objectives
• Practical — designed for repeated revision rather than passive reading
• Visual — using tables, diagrams, and frameworks to simplify complex topics

Pressure Support is intended to sit somewhere between a textbook, a set of personal study notes, and a revision guide.

#A note on use 📝

This is not an official CICM resource. It is not intended to replace textbooks, formal teaching, or wider reading on a topic.

Although care has been taken to make the content accurate, it may contain errors, omissions, or oversimplifications. If you find an error, let me know here.