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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

Today’s tip is about the importance of the specialist care team when you have a loved one in intensive care. Now you might be wondering, what am I even talking about? You might be saying, “Oh, isn’t the intensive care team, the specialist team?” Yes, they are the specialist team for intensive care, but let’s just look at an example.

Someone comes into intensive care with a cardiac arrest and they have sustained a hypoxic brain injury because of the cardiac arrest and they’re now in intensive care on a ventilator with a breathing tube. They’re not waking up. They might be already having a tracheostomy and discussions may be going on around withdrawing life support, DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) or NFR (Not for Resuscitation) and the list goes on.

So when someone is in intensive care after cardiac arrest and after a hypoxic brain injury, there are also the specialist teams involved which is the cardiologist most likely. Maybe even a cardiac surgeon, depending on whether cardiac surgery has been considered as an option and there’s definitely a neurologist involved for a hypoxic brain injury.

And you, absolutely need to talk to the cardiologist, cardiac surgeon and the neurologist in a situation like that because they wouldn’t give you a view. That’s very important for you to know. They give you the view outside of ICU.

The intensive care team can really only talk about ICU and all the dramas that come with it, all the negativity, whereas ICU can’t really give you a point of view what your loved one’s life will look like in six weeks’ time, in six months’ time, even in six years’ time, if that’s the case. And that’s why you need to talk to the specialist, in this example, cardiologist, potentially cardiac surgeon and also the neurologist, because they are the specialists that are dealing with your loved one outside of ICU. And that’s where ICU lack because they can’t give you the view outside of ICU.

So that is my quick tip for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of the website, or send us an email to [email protected].

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Take care for now.