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

So, today’s tip is really about, “What you should do if you are presented with black and white opinions in intensive care?” So, what do I mean by that? Black and white opinions in intensive care are often, “Well, your loved one’s prognosis is very poor, therefore, he’s going to die. He or she, I should say, is going to die.” Or “You should do a tracheostomy as an alternative”, that’s pretty much black and white. It’s either choosing between end of life or a tracheostomy. That’s assuming the loved one is in intensive care on a ventilator with a breathing tube. That’s what I’m anticipating here when you are watching this video.

Now, that’s a very black and white approach and there’s often gray areas in between. Intensive care is never black and white. Very rarely is it black and white. There’s a lot of gray areas and unless you know the intricacies and the details in intensive care and get an appreciation of them, you will find that you are fighting an uphill battle. So, let’s illustrate this with some examples.

So, when you have a loved one in intensive care and the intensive care team is saying to you, assuming your loved one is on a ventilator with a breathing tube and is saying, “Well, it’s either sink or swim sort of approach. Well, it’s either death or it’s either tracheostomy.” Well, I argue what if the intensive care team is aiming for getting your loved one off the ventilator and avoiding the tracheostomy working towards a much better outcome. Of course, this all depends on the prognosis, but the reason I want to discuss it today is simply the number of clients we have approaching us that give us these black and white scenarios. And when we then talk to ICU teams directly, or when we look at medical records, we often find a completely different story. And this comes back to two things.

The first thing is 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 to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know their rights, and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care. No one’s sitting at home thinking, “Oh, I wonder what I should be doing if my mom, my dad, my spouse, whoever it is that you love, needs to go into intensive care.” No one’s sitting at home wondering that, and then it hits you like a brick wall.

Now, the second thing that it comes down to is that unless you know what to look for, and unless you know what questions to ask, intensive care teams will only tell you half of the story and they will stick to the black and white approach that I’ve just described, and then when we come into the picture, it’s often like, “Well, have they told you about this? Have they told you about that option?” And we find ICU teams continue taking that black and white approach unless you challenge them. There are so many situations that we’ve turned around literally with just a couple of questions.

I have worked in intensive care for over 20 years as a critical care nurse, and I’ve worked for over five years as a nurse unit manager. I’ve been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care all around the world for the last 10 years. It really often comes down to just having like a handover call with ICUs with the doctors or with the nurses and at the flick of a switch, we can educate you very quickly about what they haven’t told you and what other options there are. Intensive care is all about the details. It’s all about the intricacies. It’s really all about learning that secret language that is intensive care, knowing and understanding the moving parts intimately so that we can help you and your family’s getting better outcomes and better options for your loved ones, and that’s what we are here for.

So, that’s 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 our website, or simply send us an email to [email protected] with your questions.

Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, in a membership area and via email, and we answer all questions intensive care related.

If you need a medical record review, for your loved one in intensive care, we can help you with that as well. We highly recommend that. We help you look at medical records in real time so we can provide you with a second opinion in real time. Also, if you need a medical record review after intensive care because you have unanswered questions, you need closure, or you suspect negligence, we can help you with that as well.

Now, subscribe to my YouTube   channel for regular updates for families in intensive care, share the video with your friends and families, click the like button, click the notification bell, and comment below what questions and insights you have from this video or if you have a specific topic you want me to make a video about.

Thank you so much for watching.

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

Take care.