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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM , where we INSTANTLY improve the lives of Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care, so that you can have PEACE OF MIND, real power, real control and so that you can influence decision making FAST, even if you’re not a doctor or a nurse in Intensive Care!
In last week’s BLOG I’ve shown you “Five things NOBODY HAS EVER TOLD YOU about Intensive Care”
You can check out last week’s BLOG here!
In this week’s BLOG I want to show you “How to be AWARE and PRESENT in Family meetings with the Intensive Care team”
If your loved one has been admitted to Intensive Care for critical illness, chances are that you feel overwhelmed, stressed, frustrated, vulnerable, out of your comfort zone and you are in fear.
That’s normal and something almost all Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care experience. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Furthermore, at one point or another, the Intensive Care team might ask you and your Family for a formal Family meeting.
Generally speaking, the Intensive Care team is ONLY having formal meetings with a Family if the situation of their critically ill loved one is really bad!
Most of the time the Intensive Care team is asking for a or even multiple Family meetings if your critically ill loved one is
- very unstable and in a very critical condition
- in a life threatening situation
That also means that if your critically ill loved one is tracking well and is in Intensive Care for a short term stay, there is usually no need for a formal Family meeting.
If things are going well, the Intensive Care team is just informally updating you and your Family at the bedside that things are going well and that’s about it. You can see for yourself that your loved one is doing well and that they will be out of ICU soon.
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And what about those really critical and dire situations that I mentioned before where your critically ill loved one is in one of those challenging, difficult and heartbreaking situations where you don’t know what the next day or even the next hours have in stall?
What about those situations where you and your Family might get told that your critically ill loved one is in a life threatening situation, is very unstable, is approaching their end of life and/or will be in Intensive Care for a long time to come?
During those situations it’s most likely that the Intensive Care team will ask you for a formal Family meeting!
Family meetings in Intensive Care are not for the faint-hearted
Now, I can tell you from experience that Family meetings in Intensive Care with the Intensive Care team tend to be nothing for the faint-hearted.
I can tell you that after more than 15 years Intensive Care nursing in three different countries and after I have worked with literally thousands of critically ill Patients and their Families and after I have been in hundreds of Family meetings in Intensive Care, you and your Family will have a hard time to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence if you are not AWARE and PRESENT during those Family meetings!
The Intensive Care team has scripted the plot and the agenda of Family meetings well in advance
Know this:
Whenever the Intensive Care team wants to have a FORMAL MEETING with you and your Family, it’s only ever happening to deliver you the BAD NEWS!
As I mentioned before, the good news can be delivered casually at the bed side and by now you will have a feeling how things are tracking anyway.
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Therefore, whenever the Intensive Care team is scheduling a FORMAL FAMILY MEETING with you and your Family, they have scripted the plot and the agenda of the meeting well in advance of you and your Family even knowing that a meeting is about to come.
What does that mean for you, for your Family and for your critically ill loved one?
For you and for your Family, it means that you need to be on HIGH ALERT, it means that if you are unprepared, if you don’t know how to position yourself strongly before, during and after this meeting that you will literally have a very hard time to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence!
It literally means that if you are not AWARE and PRESENT during Family meetings that the Intensive Care team will literally drive their mainly hidden agenda and their interests without you and your Family even noticing!
Remember, Family meetings in Intensive Care are only held if your critically ill loved one is
- very unstable and in a very critical condition
- in a life threatening situation
Therefore, in order to deliver bad news, the Intensive Care team is very shrewd and adept in delivering the bad news.
They are used to doing it and they have done it over and over again.
You and your Family need to understand the DYNAMICS and the PSYCHOLOGY during Family meetings
If you and your Family don’t understand the dynamics and the psychology during those meetings, if you don’t understand what’s happening BEHIND THE SCENES in Intensive Care, if you can’t control your emotions during those meetings, if you are unprepared, if you don’t have a “GAME PLAN”so to speak, it’ll be easy for the Intensive Care team to push their mainly hidden agenda and you will wind up without PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence!
Listen, after more than 15 years Intensive Care nursing in three different countries and after I have worked with literally thousands of critically ill Patients and their Families and after I have been in hundreds of Family meetings with Families and the Intensive Care team, you need to work out your positioning before going into a Family meeting!
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99% of Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care don’t have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence because they are not positioned well, they trust the Intensive Car team blindly, they don’t question, they don’t understand that the positioning of the Intensive Care team is derived from the politics, the power play, the dynamics, the intrigue, the psychology, the competing interests and the hidden agendas in Intensive Care!
Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care also don’t understand that if their critically ill loved one is in one of those difficult, challenging and heartbreaking situations where they are
- very unstable and in a very critical condition
- in a life threatening situation
that the positioning of your critically ill loved one’s diagnosis and prognosis in those situations by the Intensive Care team is dependent on the interests and the agenda of the Intensive Care team.
I’ll give you a real world example
For example, your 75 year old mother has been admitted to Intensive Care after she had a cardiac arrest and your mother needed to be resuscitated for about 20 minutes before she got admitted to Intensive Care.
The Intensive Care team is telling you and your Family that your mother has a poor chance of survival and that if she does survive that she would have a “poor quality of life” anyway and that it would be in your mother’s “best interest” to “withdraw treatment”.
What you and your Family don’t know is that the Intensive Care Unit is currently experiencing a high demand on their expensive and scarce ICU beds, what the Intensive Care team also isn’t telling you is that if they offered your mother full and best treatment available, they think that it would be too costly or that it would be too uncertain that they could meet their revenue targets or even worse, your mother doesn’t fall into a medical research category and therefore the Intensive Care team hasn’t got any interest in offering your mother full and best treatment available.
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Therefore, if you and your Family don’t do your own research, if you and your Family don’t know how to position yourself strongly and correctly, and if you and your Family don’t know that you are involved in a HIGH STAKES GAME that generally speaking only the Intensive Care team knows how to win, you and your Family will have a very hard time to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence!
If you and your Family are going into a Family meeting BLINDLY, if you and your Family continue to do what 99% of Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care do who have no PEACE OF MIND, no control, no power and no influence, if you and your Family don’t get a handle on things QUICKLY, I can assure you that the Intensive Care team will press their agenda forward and their agenda may not be in the best interest for your critically ill loved one!
The Intensive Care team will always drive their mainly hidden agenda and if you continue to go into Family meetings BLINDLY, if you are not AWARE and PRESENT during those Family meetings and if you don’t learn QUICKLY how you can have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence those Family meetings will end up being a disaster for you, for your Family and most of all for your critically ill loved one!
You, your Family and your critically ill loved one are in a unique and ONCE IN A LIFETIME situation. Unique and ONCE IN A LIFETIME situations require unique responses and if you continue to do what 99% of Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care are doing who have no PEACE OF MIND, no power, no control and no influence, you’ll wind up clueless and you’ll wind up with no bargaining or positioning power in a Family meeting with the Intensive Care team!
On the other hand, if you continue doing your own research, if you learn how to position yourself powerfully and if you learn the secrets “BEHIND THE SCENES” in Intensive Care, you will have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence!
How can you have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence whilst your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care?
You get to that all important feeling of PEACE OF MIND, CONTROL, POWER AND INFLUENCE when you download your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” report NOW by entering your email below!
In Your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” report you’ll learn quickly how to get PEACE OF MIND, real power and real control and how you can influence decision making fast, whilst your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care! Your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” Report gives you in-depth insight that you must know whilst your loved one is critically ill or is even dying in Intensive Care! Sign up and download your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” REPORT now by entering your email below!
In your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” REPORT you’ll learn how to speak the “secret” Intensive Care language so that the doctors and the nurses know straight away that you are an insider and that you know and understand what’s really happening in Intensive Care!
In your FREE report you’ll also discover
- How to ask the doctors and the nurses the right questions
- Discover the many competing interests in Intensive Care and how your critically ill loved one’s treatment may depend on those competing interests
- How to eliminate fear, frustration, stress, struggle and vulnerability even if your loved one is dying
- 5 “killer” tips& strategies helping you to get on the right path to PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence in your situation
- You’ll get real world examples that you can easily adapt to your and your critically ill loved one’s situation
- How to stop being intimidated by the Intensive Care team and how you will be seen as equals
- You’ll get crucial ‘behind the scenes’ insight so that you know and understand what is really happening in Intensive Care
- How you need to manage doctors and nurses in Intensive Care(it’s not what you think)
Thank you for tuning into this week’s “BLOG” and I’ll see you again in another update next week!
Make sure you also check out our “YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED” section where we answer your questions or send me an email to [email protected] with your questions!
Also check out our Products section where you get more Ebooks, Videos and Audio recordings and where you can also get 1:1 consulting!
This is Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM and I’ll see you again next week with another update!
Sincerely, your Friend
Patrik Hutzel
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