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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, again, “What questions to ask in ICU and how to dig deeper?” You’re probably sick of me saying it over and over again that the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is simply that they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know their rights and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care. And you’ve heard me say before that intensive care teams will only tell you half of the story, unless you know what to look for and what questions to ask. Case in point. Let me give you an example.

So, I was in a family meeting with a client representing them with the ICU team and the client was on vasopressors, like midodrine for low blood pressure. And then I asked the ICU team, “Why his blood pressure is so low and what’s the underlying cause?” And they were saying that he’s got cardiomyopathy, which is a weakness of the contractility of the heart. He has an ejection fraction of around 30%.

Now, the family has asked the very same question before, but couldn’t get an answer, but I was probing for it, specifically saying, “Is there any weakness with the heart muscle?”, which is what a cardiomyopathy is and had they done an ultrasound? Had they done cardiology review? And then it turned out that they did all of that in July, but they never told the family. And obviously, the family also didn’t know what to ask for, but it just confirms what I’ve been saying over and over again, that ICU teams are only telling you half of the story, unless you’re asking the right questions.

It’s also another confirmation that you need to ask for medical records at the very least. It’s also confirmation that you need to have someone in your meetings that can ask all the right questions and that can probe deeper when it comes to issues, what medications is someone on? What’s the underlying reason? Can they fix it? Can they not fix it? What other diagnostics have taken place? It’s a complex puzzle. Intensive care is a highly specialized area. And unless you know what you’re looking for, you’ll never find out what’s really happened. You will be fighting an uphill battle and ICU teams have a very easy time to get their agenda pushed through, walk all over you, and you will never find out or never have a say about what’s going to happen.

That’s my quick tip for today.

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

Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org.

If you want a medical record review for your loved one or for yourself after intensive care or in intensive care, contact us as well and we can help you with a medical record review as well.

And, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care and Intensive Care at Home, share this video with your friends and families, click the notification bell, comment below what you want to see next or what questions and insights you have from this video.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I’ll talk to you in a few days.

Take care.