Contemplating the Role of an Intensive Care Doctor: A Fieldwork Guide to Intensive Care Medicine - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3031927656 ISBN 13: 9783031927652

Publisher: Springer, 2025

Synopsis

The intensive care unit (ICU) is a specialized hospital ward where people with life threatening conditions receive around-the-clock monitoring and life support. It is here that the sickest of the sick patients are managed, and there is a large spectrum of challenging working conditions that may cause significant psychological stress to those who function in them. There is a growing body of evidence supporting the increasing prevalence of mental health issues among the medical fraternity. The notion of professional burnout syndrome in the intensive care specialty is well described in the literature and is perceived to be due to the workload and acuity of the field.

Contemplating the Role of the Intensive Care Doctor brings together an experienced group of intensivists and other clinicians to provide further commentary related to the observations and generous reflections of those interviewed. The main focus is on the need for young doctors to contemplate their own personality and the intensive care environment itself to prepare themselves to work within the specialty and have longevity and good health while doing so.

The book is comprised of eighteen chapters that explore personality traits, various allocations of role, the working environment, and the complex nature of communication between peers, teams, and families. It aims to facilitate the resilience of young doctors by challenging their perception of themselves and of those around them. We hope that by exploring these narratives, these doctors will be better prepared to manage their potential vulnerability within the ICU medical team.

About this title

About the Author

Diane Dennis BSc, PhD, FHEA

Head of Physiotherapy Department 

Sir Charles Gairdner and Osborne Park Healthcare Group, Nedlands, 6009, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

 

Peter Vernon van Heerden, MBBCh, MMed(Anaes), PhD

Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine

Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel

 

Michael Ruppe, MD

Division of Critical Care, Department of Pediatrics

University of Louisville, and Norton Children’s Medical Group, Louisville, KY, USA

From the Back Cover

The intensive care unit (ICU) is a specialized hospital ward where people with life threatening conditions receive around-the-clock monitoring and life support. It is here that the sickest of the sick patients are managed, and there is a large spectrum of challenging working conditions that may cause significant psychological stress to those who function in them. There is a growing body of evidence supporting the increasing prevalence of mental health issues among the medical fraternity. The notion of professional burnout syndrome in the intensive care specialty is well described in the literature and is perceived to be due to the workload and acuity of the field.

Contemplating the Role of the Intensive Care Doctor brings together an experienced group of intensivists and other clinicians to provide further commentary related to the observations and generous reflections of those interviewed. The main focus is on the need for young doctors to contemplate their own personality and the intensive care environment itself to prepare themselves to work within the specialty and have longevity and good health while doing so.

The book is comprised of eighteen chapters that explore personality traits, various allocations of role, the working environment, and the complex nature of communication between peers, teams, and families. It aims to facilitate the resilience of young doctors by challenging their perception of themselves and of those around them. We hope that by exploring these narratives, these doctors will be better prepared to manage their potential vulnerability within the ICU medical team.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3031927656
• ISBN 13: 9783031927652
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220
• Editor: Dennis Diane, Van Heerden Peter Vernon, Ruppe Michael