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I don't regret it. There is so much variety, every day is different, and what we do is so important. But I am finding it harder, 20 years down the track. I love doing critical care but I find...

I worked in an Australian city public ICU that had a burns speciality for 3 years. A few random thoughts that entered my head when I read your note: The rooms are really hot, which is hard to...

I agree with all the comments of life-threatening situations: fast-paced, exciting, etc. But also I like the nurse:patient ratio and also the support available when things go wrong. I have equipment,...

Give it a good six months. I felt like I made so many errors when I started. The patient deteriorated, and it was all my fault? Of course not, but I could not see why. I was so tired and stressed,...

I agree with the other posts about experience guiding inotrope titration. But also, with disease processes such as sepsis,or multi-organ failure, you will get a feel for how far to go up or down. ...

Help each other out, without asking. Little things like turning pts, suction- all the two-hourly things we do. It's just done in time for breaks. And done well. Using each other rather than the...

I'd say also 'aorta'.

I'd say 3-5 years. I start to get really low about hospital politics and procedures after 6 months (the 'they-do-it-better-elsewhere' thing); but by 5 years I am really taking a sick day every...

I guess it depends if you believe in God! I agree we do prolong things now in ICU. And I do feel sad for those patients when you, and they, know the inevitable is coming. The hopelessness of it....

We use Swans here all the time in Adelaide, Australia. The docs use them mainly for number-crunching. Seeing the trend in the numbers: SVRI not so much. More CI/CO. I don't think they are...

Here in my Australian public hospital, we do 4 CABG per day, 5 days a week. They do well. Some bleed and go back to theatre, but after that they're OK. Some come back on aortic balloon pumps, but...

I end up retching with them! Thank goodness I work in ICU where they are all intubated-yay!

I think you did the right thing. It was a peri-arrest situation so your priorities are Airway, Breathing, Circulation. ABC...not TPN. That can wait.

Because I make a difference in someone's life, and it is a big difference. You can be there at the last breath, or when everything is being done to save a life such as cracking open a chest. It is an...

In Australia, dialysis aptients are 1:1. We use citrate rarely. We use the suction tubing hooked up to the effluent bags and drain them into a outlet in the wall, and reuse them too. 3 litre...

I still would have held the meds. Does the Dr want the patient to go into arrest by the morning? If your colleagues agree, and we are educated people, then I don't get the big deal. Re:badness: we...

I have been doing ICU for 15 years. I love making such a difference to lives. When they are rapidly deteriorating, and everyone is so busy doing stuff to save them. That adrenaline rush is the...

Hi. I work in intensive care. 5 cardiac bypass patients per weekday. We don't use anything. They come back from theatre with a kind of synthetic mesh and then a thin hydrocolloid dressing (Duoderm)...

We use them here in Adelaide, Australia. But only on VRE/MRSA patients. They are great.Our regular patients' ECG leads are a bit bloody despite the cleans between admissions. Particularly...

How is the patient going? Any updates on his condition?

I was working in a Recovery/PACU unit. They were building a High Dependancy Unit next door. Before it opened, I popped to have a look. All clean and fresh and new! Got the job, but that unit...

Hi. I am betting he may make it, and have not seen 5 in at the same time but 4. But the ventilation issues are huge, an absolute nightmare to wrecked lungs. Some smart tricky ventilations modes...

I agree with Heron. I qualified in 1994, under the old hospital-based training. I disagree with the more univercity/college-based courses today. But I guess I think the crux of it would be: I...

Hi Sarah in Adelaide, Australia here We started using Alsius units 8 months ago. Fantastic. Look like a central femoral line. Do a great job. Easy to use. Nice little dial to see the fluid...

While you obviously didn't feel the situation was handled as you had hoped, please remember it is an awfully hard thing to do. A family's reaction can be so unpredictable and a sick relative can...