Critical care medicine is the area of medical care that is given in the intensive care units. This includes the intensive care, cardiac intensive care, newborn intensive care and surgical intensive care units. These are highly specialized units that require a multi-disciplinary team of physicians, nurses and the variety of therapists. Often these patients are on ventilators. Some physicians will be trained to care for patients only in these areas and go under the designation of "Intensivists" or "Critical Care Specialists."
Critical care admissions ask if a patient has a living will, so if there is a negative outcome, the patient's wants are met.
The admitting doctor in the critical care unit decides when you need to be in a critical care unit. For example, a patient arrives in the emergency room, with complex medical or surgical issues, that require specialized intravenous medications, mechanical ventilation, or close monitoring. That emergency room doctor will contact the critical care doctor and discuss the plan of care. Based on this information, the critical care doctor will admit this patient into the critical care unit. Critical care covers a wide variety of specialized doctors, such as cardiologists, nephrologists, pulmonologists, and neurosurgeons. Any of these doctors, who have critical care admitting privileges, decides when a patient needs specialized critical care.
A registered nurse is a nurse who has obtained either a 2 year ASN degree, 3 year (diploma) or a 4 year BSN degree. A registered nurse can obtain additional training and specialize in a particular area of nursing such as critical care. A critical care nurse is a registered nurse who cares for patients who are very ill and require special attention.
A critical care practitioner is involved with the treatment of many illnesses. They may treat Shock (related to Resp/Heart/Fluid volume), Pneumonia, Upper Respiratory Failure, Coronary Heart disease, Heart attack, Hypertension, Diabetes, Hyperglycemia, Hypoglycemia, Ventilator issues, Infections (sepsis), Electrolyte disorders, Thyroid storm, and Trauma injury. These are just to name a few. There are so many illnesses. There are many books/websites related to critical care nursing/nurse practitioner which have many more illnesses listed.
Catheters that measure values and catheters that allow access to veins are the main types used in critical care.
If you come into the emergency room (ER) with heart attack symptoms, such as chest pain, but it's indigestion, ER doctors will perform tests to determine what is causing your chest pain. They may perform an electrocardiogram (EKG), a chest x-ray or blood tests, and then say “We have good news. It doesn’t look like it’s your heart, it looks like it may just be indigestion.”
ER doctors see more people die from indigestion, which really turned out to be a heart attack that they should have been in the emergency department for. You should never be criticized for coming to the ER with what might have been a life-threatening event.
Trinity Health is a Catholic health care organization that acts in accordance with the Catholic tradition and does not condone or support all practices covered in this site. In case of emergency call 911. This site is educational and not a substitute for professional medical advice, always seek the advice of a qualified health care provider.