Articles: critical-care.
-
To determine patients' preferences for intensive care and to evaluate the influence of a recent ICU experience on preferences for future ICU treatment. ⋯ Patients tolerate intensive care well and desire it to restore health. Most patients modify their desire for intensive care if less favorable outcomes are likely. Patients' preferences for intensive care cannot be predicted from demographic features or previous ICU experiences.
-
Advances in the area of pediatric medicine during the past few years have presented ethical dilemmas for the physician to consider. This article discusses the ethical principles upon which clinical reasoning and judgments can be made.
-
Current methods of ventilation do not allow adequate ventilation of the affected lungs in the presence of unilateral disease, e.g., unilateral atelectasis, diaphragmatic hernia, or lobar emphysema. Using a bilumen endotracheal tube and two independent ventilators, synchronized simultaneous independent lung ventilation (SILV) can be achieved. This technique provides a method of treating unilobar, unilateral, or multifocal lung disease effectively. This article describes the author's methodology and clinical experience with SILV.