A MUST read!
Another good critical care book I'd like to mention is titled,
Clinical Wisdom and Interventions in Critical Care - A Thinking in Action Approach by Patricia Benner, Patricia Hooper-Kyriakidis, and Daphne Stannard, (c)1999, ISBN 0721675115. Some may have read Patricia Benner before (
Expertise in Nursing Practice, by Benner, et.al, 1996)
The goal of this book is to get those nurses who work in critical care to read the book and
spontaneously respond, "you have put into words what I have always known about critical care nursing practice but had not expressed."
The book does not simplify or reduce critical care to principles in an attempt to make it easier to learn/or read. Instead, the book provides an amazingly whole picture enabling the learner/reader to
visualize what critical care is really like and to comprehend the expectations placed on critical care nurses.
This book is made of of first-hand accounts of 205 staff and advanced practice nurses. The authors arranged with participating facilities to observe the critical care nurse at work taking first hand accounts of what the nurse is doing through an interview process as things happen (some of the interviews are done with nurses at my CTICU before I started working there!
). This is THE book that describes for us what we have such a hard time describing - what we do, how we do it, and why. This book is VERY MUCH about critical thinking and clinical judgement based on VERY specific examples (the interviews).
Different in construction from most nursing or medical texts, it takes advantage of the depth of detail and intrigue found in "nurse stories." Every chapter is replete with real-life incidents used to illustrate the complex ideas and ambiguities inherent in caring for the critically ill.
All I can say is this book is excellent! I've read it twice, once just recently and once about 4 years ago. I can guarantee you that every single critical care nurse out there will love this book. I can't recommend it enough, especially for newcomers to nursing and critical care!
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