marqpdx

In June 2007, my family survived two weeks in the PICU when our oldest son nearly died falling out of a tree. The staff were to the point of discussing among themselves whether to begin counseling us about the possibility of removing him from life support and letting nature take its course. Since that very, very low point in our lives, our son has made a remarkable recovery, and is now back at school, riding his bike, being an 11 year old boy. Since then, i have written a booklet to help families survive ICU, have spoken to residents at OHSU about Parenting in the ICU, am building ways to help nurses and doctors with Debriefing Grief and dealing with High-Intensity Communications issues and am educating myself about Family Centered Critical Care. I am intensely interested in discerning the non-clinical factors that help create positive outcomes for patients and families. We had an amazing (to many, surprisingly so) recovery, and i want to understand if there are ways to help other families (and the nurses that support them) achieve a similar miracle. My question to you (i'm not a nurse, just a very very interested father) is: what do you think are the key contributing non-clinical factors for healing and recovery in the PICU? Thank you for taking the time to consider this! Many smiles, m

Dimensions in Critical Care Nursing is certainly worth a read. thx, m