Dimensions of critical care nursing : DCCN
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Dimens Crit Care Nurs · Mar 1989
Case ReportsThe pregnant woman with a myocardial infarction: nursing diagnosis.
Critical care nurses in emergency, cardiac, or medical intensive care units may care for women who have experienced a myocardial infarction during pregnancy. Nursing management of the pregnant patient with a myocardial infarction (MI) requires an understanding of the normal physiology of pregnancy, the deviations from health with an MI, and an ability to integrate this knowledge to provide skillful care to unique and very ill patients. Here the authors describe caring for a pregnant patient in cardiac care, while a later article in this tissue focuses on the critical care nurse's role in teaching obstetric nurses arrhythmia interpretation when the patient remains on an obstetric unit. Collaboration between the critical care nurse and obstetric nurse is essential to care for these complex patients.