Vital Signs Stories from Intensive Care

by Hillman, Ken

• ISBN13: 9781742230955
• ISBN10: 1742230954
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-01
• Publisher: NewSouth

Summary

Written by a practicing intensive care clinician, this unique collection shares the experiences of intensive care patients and their families. Demonstrating how ordinary people cope in the face of terrible tragedies, this inspiring account journeys inside an intensive care unit and reveals the daily struggles of caring staff members in this critical environment. Filled with humorous and heartbreaking moments, this compilation will appeal to healthcare students as well as those dealing with the death of a loved one.

Author Biography

Ken Hillman is a professor of intensive care at the University of New South Wales and at Liverpool Hospital in Australia. He is the coauthor of Clinical Intensive Care.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 7
The angel of dying	p. 13
A colonial at Barts	p. 20
Ageing doctors	p. 30
The elephants' graveyard	p. 39
The myth of CPR	p. 52
An interesting case of blue feet	p. 70
And the blood goes round and round	p. 78
Orchestrating deaths	p. 89
Father of the year	p. 99
When things go wrong	p. 106
The wonderful gut	p. 115
The labels on the pack	p. 130
The last photograph	p. 140
Michelle and the life-support machine	p. 146
Some ethical issues	p. 156
When the muscles won't work	p. 170
Pathos	p. 179
Euphemisms	p. 188
Spectacular successes	p. 198
Fatima and John: the difficulty in dying	p. 207
The worst injury of all	p. 218
Patient-centred care	p. 227
Getting it wrong	p. 241
Surviving the experience	p. 249
Dying by other names	p. 254
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