The intensive care unit (ICU) is a specialised hospital ward where the ‘sickest-of-the-sick’ patients, often with life-threatening illness, receive around-the-clock monitoring and life support. There is a wide spectrum of conditions managed, and these present unique challenges for those who work in this field. Written in lay language by experienced ICU doctors (Intensivists), Psychiatrists, healthcare professionals outside of medicine and other stakeholders, “Stories from ICU doctors” provides insight and commentary around the nature and management of stressors for senior doctors working in the ICU. The first five sections of the book describe the distinctive nature of the ICU environment: the human factors involved, the characteristics of thriving Intensivists, the emotions they experience, and how they behave in response. The final three sections provide a synthesis of the advice of these clinicians for both current and future Intensivists, the advice from those who surround the Intensivist both at work and at home; and some concluding remarks about trainee suitability and selection for intensive care medicine. This book is for ICU patients and their families, it is for the families of ICU doctors, it is for doctors from other specialities, it is for the nurses and others that work alongside ICU doctors, and for anyone considering a career in ICU medicine and those who care for them. We share these stories in hope that readers might better appreciate the human side of these doctors, better understand the complex working environment in which they practice, and perhaps better empathize with their stressors and struggles. Most importantly, this book is also for the ICU doctors who currently work within the specialty, to validate their feelings and experiences, and ultimately provide support by reminding them that they are not alone in navigating the difficulties they face.

After reading William Carlos Williams’ The Doctor Stories the patients of my own past began to haunt me. Driving in my car, musing in elevators, winding down at my desk at the end of the work day; the patients in my own past just crowded out all thoughts in my mind. Their compelling stories nearly became an obsession. I began to keep a journal. In it, I kept track of who was haunting me and as much of their story as I could remember. As their numbers grew and I had more details clear in my mind, their stories took form and shape. I have always been one that remembers people by their face more than their name and the faces would appear and their stories would come back to me as though it was yesterday. Some of these patients had not been remembered for over thirty years going back to my time as a student and intern. And yet when I started to compose at my computer, the words just flowed. The stories wrote themselves. The emotions attached to the patients had not dimmed and propelled me forward in the effort to put their stories down in narrative form. There are scores of patients whose stories came back to me that I have organized into approximately 30 different chapters. Each story stands alone but all have the common themes of pathos, compassion, trial and triumph of the human spirit. The theme of the triumph of the human spirit suffuses the entire book. I am continually amazed at how humans can handle what life throws at them. We never know how much we can handle until we are asked to rise above extraordinary circumstances. At the same time there are the oddly amusing stories. Sometimes it is enough just to put a smile on one’s face. There are stories like that too. The patients in my book all have had to deal with the extraordinary. Everyone is vulnerable to illness and death. The patients described in the pages of my book stand out in some way as remarkable. The book is a memoir, but it is not about me. The book is about the patients and their struggles.

A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of the monthly New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis," the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D. "The experience of being ill can be like waking up in a foreign country. Life, as you formerly knew it, is on hold while you travel through this other world as unknown as it is unexpected. When I see patients in the hospital or in my office who are suddenly, surprisingly ill, what they really want to know is, ‘What is wrong with me?’ They want a road map that will help them manage their new surroundings. The ability to give this unnerving and unfamiliar place a name, to know it—on some level—restores a measure of control, independent of whether or not that diagnosis comes attached to a cure. Because, even today, a diagnosis is frequently all a good doctor has to offer." A healthy young man suddenly loses his memory—making him unable to remember the events of each passing hour. Two patients diagnosed with Lyme disease improve after antibiotic treatment—only to have their symptoms mysteriously return. A young woman lies dying in the ICU—bleeding, jaundiced, incoherent—and none of her doctors know what is killing her. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Lisa Sanders takes us bedside to witness the process of solving these and other diagnostic dilemmas, providing a firsthand account of the expertise and intuition that lead a doctor to make the right diagnosis. Never in human history have doctors had the knowledge, the tools, and the skills that they have today to diagnose illness and disease. And yet mistakes are made, diagnoses missed, symptoms or tests misunderstood. In this high-tech world of modern medicine, Sanders shows us that knowledge, while essential, is not sufficient to unravel the complexities of illness. She presents an unflinching look inside the detective story that marks nearly every illness—the diagnosis—revealing the combination of uncertainty and intrigue that doctors face when confronting patients who are sick or dying. Through dramatic stories of patients with baffling symptoms, Sanders portrays the absolute necessity and surprising difficulties of getting the patient’s story, the challenges of the physical exam, the pitfalls of doctor-to-doctor communication, the vagaries of tests, and the near calamity of diagnostic errors. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Sanders chronicles the real-life drama of doctors solving these difficult medical mysteries that not only illustrate the art and science of diagnosis, but often save the patients’ lives.

Professional reminiscences of several medical specialists about their patients.

“Perhaps one lesson to draw from the pandemic, with help from books like this one, is that the ICU experience can be changed for the better” (The Washington Post) for both patients and their families. You will learn how in this timely, urgent, and compassionate work by a world-renowned critical care doctor. Over the next ten years, 40 to 60 million people in this country will be admitted to the ICU. Most of these hospitalizations will be sudden, unexpected, and harrowing experiences that can alter patients and their families physically and emotionally, with effects that endure for years. In this rich blend of science, medical history, profoundly humane patient stories, and personal reflection, Dr. Wes Ely describes his mission to prevent patients from being inadvertently harmed by the technology that is keeping them alive. You will experience the world of critical care through the eyes of a physician who drastically changed his clinical practice to offer person-centered health care, and through cutting-edge research convinced others to do the same. For decades, ICU survivors left the hospital with disabling symptoms including newly acquired dementia, depression, PTSD, and nerve damage, all now recognized as Post Intensive Care Syndrome, or PICS. Dr. Ely’s groundbreaking investigations advanced the understanding of PICS and introduced crucial changes that reshaped intensive care: minimizing sedation, maximizing mobility, listening to the family, and providing supportive aftercare. Dr. Ely shows that there are ways to bring humanity into the ICU and that “technology plus touch” is the future of health care and is a proven path toward returning ICU patients to the lives they had before their hospital stay. An essential resource for anyone who will be affected by illness—which is all of us—Ely’s “personal, passionate return to the ethical heart of the Hippocratic oath…[offers] meaningful, thought-provoking insight into the world of critical care” (Kirkus Reviews).

A tale of miracles and hope, The Si Peterson Story recounts the extraordinary life of Frank Siedel Peterson (Si), a young, vibrant sixteen-year-old who fell from a high bar while doing gymnastics, and broke his neck. Instantly and totally paralyzed from his chin down, Si spent the next eighteen years of his life as a quadriplegic. Narrated by his devoted mother, Si’s journey is a beautiful example of a life lived with courage, faith, and complete trust in the Heavenly Father’s will. The Si Peterson Story leaves its reader inspired and strengthened by the legacy of Si’s unbreakable faith.

From a high school dropout to Doctor of the Year, the author's inspired journey into the field of medicine brought him face to face with life's most profound moments. In this fascinating memoir he recounts true case histories of his most interesting and challenging patient encounters over the course of forty years of family practice. A few tales are humorous and many are intriguing or bizarre. Some are touching, sad, or tragic but most have happy endings after a few close calls, and a couple of miracles. The reader will find the stories related here to be engaging as well as educational. Dr. Brownlee's hope is to motivate readers to be aware of the warning signals that their bodies relay to change their behavior to avoid illness and perhaps even save their own lives.

End-of-life experiences are often viewed in terms of only one perspective such as medicine. In this volume, a variety of end-of life experiences are presented and each case is analyzed from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. These range across a broad array of the helping professions, and disciplines such as information, law and the social sciences. The book provides a variety of narratives about end-of-life experiences contributed by members of the Wayne State University End-of-Life Interdisciplinary Project. Each of the narratives is then analyzed from several different disciplinary perspectives. These analyzes illustrate how specific end-of-life narratives can be viewed from different dimensions and helps students, researchers and practitioners see the important and varied meanings that end-of-life experiences have at the level of the individual, the family, and the community. The narratives include end-of-life experiences of individuals from a number of diverse backgrounds.

OWOSSO- Kathleen Wright refused to surrender. When a massive brain hemorrhage plunged her into a coma, doctors warned her family she may never awaken. Twenty weeks later, Wright awoke and continued to defy the odds through nearly 10 years and 129 doctors. "She just had tremendous willpower, said her husband, Jerry.

Moving, honest and inspiring – this is a nurse’s true story of life in a busy A&E department during the Covid-19 crisis. Working in A&E is a challenging job but nurse Louise Curtis loves it. She was newly qualified as an advanced clinical practitioner, responsible for life or death decisions about the patients she saw, when the unthinkable happened and the country was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. The stress on the NHS was huge and for the first time in her life, the job was going to take a toll on Louise herself. In A Nurse’s Story she describes what happened next, as the trickle of Covid patients became a flood. And just as tragically, staff in A&E were faced with the effects of lockdown on society. They worried about their regulars, now missing, and saw an increase in domestic abuse victims and suicide attempts as loneliness hit people hard. By turns heartbreaking and heartwarming, this book shines a light on the compassion and dedication of hospital staff during such dark times. 'An important memoir that we all need to read right now.' – Closer