Emergencies in Critical Care

About this book

• Features easily accessible evidence-based guide for managing emergencies in critical care
• Utilizes the standard "ABC" approach to emergency medicine
• Every topic starts on a new page to aid ease-of-use
• Easy-to-follow classifications of emergencies

New to this edition

• Updated to reflect current national guidelines, recent research and new areas of importance
• Normal values are compiled into one short chapter for quick reference
• Includes a re-written chapter on procedures allowing for better understanding of the practical requirements

This essential handbook provides a practical, accessible guide to all emergency situations encountered in the critical care setting. Emergencies are very common in the critical care setting and this book helps critical care staff identify patients at risk, how to manage them, and be prepared. To help the reader find advice quickly, most chapters begin with a generic description of how to manage emergencies affecting that system, or patient group. This is followed by details of specific diagnoses and how they should be managed. The author team, where possible, follow the 'ABC' approach, which is not only the standard approach to emergency management, but also a widely-used scheme for documenting daily reviews on ICU, and for documenting trauma management.

This second edition covers new areas of importance, including sections on how to deal with adverse events and critical incidents involving critically ill patients, patient-safety and improved patient rescue packages, and on the practicalities of infection control procedures. Normal values have been combined in to one short chapter for easy reference.

Easy to use and evidence-based, this book will help all critical care staff involved with the management of emergencies, from the new junior doctor to the experienced consultant in a portable and easily-readable format.

Readership: Critical care doctors, in particular trainees in critical care, anaesthesia, and the medical and surgical specialties also involved in high dependency or intensive care. Also of interest to critical care nurses.

Table of Contents

1: Assessment and stabilization
2: Airway
3: Breathing
4: Circulation
5: Neurology
6: Metabolic, endocrine and environmental injury
7: Renal
8: Gastrointestinal and hepatic
9: Haematology and oncology
10: Infections
11: Surgical patients
12: Trauma, burns, and skin injury
13: Obstetric and fertility patients
14: Poisoning and overdose
15: Incidents and adverse events
16: Communication and organ donation
17: Common emergency procedures

Author Information

Edited by Martin Beed, Consultant in Critical Care and Anaesthesia, Critical Care Directorate, Nottingham City Hospital, UK, Richard Sherman, Consultant in Critical Care and Anaesthesia, Critical Care Directorate, Nottingham City Hospital. UK, and Ravi Mahajan, Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care, Critical Care Directorate, Nottingham City Hospital, UK

Martin Beed graduated from Nottingham Medical School in 1994, and has worked in a wide variety of hospitals including being a medical SHO in the Shetland Isles. He trained in anaesthesia and intensive care in the Nottingham and East Midlands School of Anaesthesia; and has also worked for a year in the intensive care unit of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia, where he developed an interest in the retrieval and transfer of critically ill patients by air or by road. He obtained a consultant post in Intensive Care and Anaesthesia in 2006 at the City Campus of Nottingham University Hospitals.

Richard Sherman trained at The University of Sheffield Medical School. He gained his current position as Consultant in Critical Care & Anaesthesia at Nottingham City Hospital in 2002. He has been a member of the Intensive Care Society for over eight years. He is a qualified Advanced Trauma Life Support instructor and enjoys the educational aspect of his work. He is involved with undergraduate and trainee teaching, audit and research.

Ravi Majahan joined the University of Nottingham in 1991 as a lecturer in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, and was awarded chair in 2006. He has a drive for education and research, has been training programme director, honorary secretary of Anaesthetic Research Society, and has held many examinerships. His main research interests include cerebral vascular physiology, and vascular physiology in sepsis.