The workplace - Intensive Care Specialty Training Program

Most intensive care units (ICUs) in Australia are closed units, where intensivists are the primary care physicians who take responsibility for orders and treatment decisions as long as a patient is in the ICU. However, there is usually good collaboration between intensivists and other medical specialists. Instensivists have a particularly close working relationship with intensive care nurses who are highly skilled and play a significant role in patient management.

Patients in the ICU are usually referred to intensivists by a primary team elsewhere in the hospital. Outside the ICU, intensivists provide assistance in the care of rapidly deteriorating patients. This care is intended to avoid further deterioration and subsequent transfer to the ICU or to optimise the patient’s management while awaiting transfer to the ICU. An intensivists’ expertise in caring for critically ill patients is highly valued and they may be found attending medical emergencies in theatre recovery rooms, emergency departments or general wards.

Before admitting a patient to the ICU, the intensivist has to assess on a case-by-case basis whether intensive treatment will better the patients’ condition, giving them a reasonable possibility of surviving with such care. Since at the time of admission to the ICU the patient may be critically ill and the outcome of this intervention difficult to predict, good end-of-life care for both the patient and family is an integral part of intensive care medicine.

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Last modified: February 17, 2010 6:08 PM