Going to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is often a sudden, sudden, and admittedly unwelcome expertise, that means that many mother and father shouldn’t have sufficient time to anticipate going to the PICU to do analysis on what to anticipate in the course of a scenario. Knowing what to anticipate earlier than that actuality ever arises can provide you useful context if a go to to the PICU ought to happen, and this information could possibly be useful to you, a member of the family, or a pal sometime.
What is the PICU, and what are you able to count on there?
The PICU is a unit inside the hospital that’s particularly designed to look after infants, kids, and adolescents with extreme and generally life-threatening sicknesses, accidents, or medical circumstances. If you haven’t been to a PICU earlier than, it may be laborious to know what to anticipate. The very first thing you’ll in all probability discover is the variety of folks there: docs, nurse practitioners, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and all remedy assist methods and allied well being professionals. You might even see a health care provider you already know properly – a surgeon, a heart specialist, a pulmonologist, an endocrinologist, and many others. however, the docs and nurse practitioners you will notice probably the most typically shall be ones with specific coaching and experience in caring for youngsters who require the PICU. They are known as intensivists. You will shortly study their names as a result of you’ll probably see them typically. You will see them early within the morning, at bedside rounds, all through the day, and late into the night time. You will probably see a unique physician at night time than you probably did throughout the day however know that they’re all speaking with each other to make sure that your youngster will get the care they want. Some of the docs will nonetheless be in coaching. The ones particularly coaching to change into pediatric intensivists are known as fellows, whereas those coaching to change into pediatricians are known as residents. All these docs and nurse practitioners are speaking with one another and with some other docs and suppliers whose experience is required to care in your youngster whereas they’re sick.
The subsequent factor you’ll probably discover is the machines within the PICU. There shall be a lot of them, they usually all make noise. At nighttime, the varied beeping noises can contribute to the bizarre sense that you’re on a spaceship far, far-off, somewhat than tethered firmly to the identical constructing you got here to from the connected storage. Unfortunately, most of the noises are supposed to sound intrusive – alarming. And when the particular person connected to that alarming machine is your youngster, alarming will be terrifying. Most of the time, the alarms don’t imply one thing horrible is going on. They are meant to attract consideration to issues that could be an issue if they’re sustained over time, however transient beeping turns into the mandatory go-along for all of the vigilance. You may have a nurse assigned to your youngster who can reply most, if not all, of your questions in regards to the sounds you hear. Other machines will be scary even with out the noise – these are the machines that you recognize are there to assist physique features that your youngster, for no matter purpose, at the moment can not do for themselves. These embody IV pumps that ship medicines to your youngster, ventilators that assist them to breathe, and others, relying in your youngster’s situation. When your care group determines that your youngster wants a type of machines to get higher, they are going to typically discuss to you about it earlier than they should get it began.
Sometimes emergencies happen, and at these occasions, the PICU is the fitting place in your youngster to be as a way to handle these emergencies as shortly and effectively as attainable. What I hope you recognize in all these situations is that your care group will solely use the kinds of assist that they assume are essential, they usually need to have the ability to get your youngster off the machines and again to their regular functioning as shortly and totally as attainable. Doing that’s the reason they determined to work within the PICU within the first place.
So, what’s the PICU? It’s a particular place within the hospital for probably the most severely ailing youngsters. It’s a spot that’s sophisticated and technical and sometimes horrifying. But it’s a spot the place a group of execs has come collectively to offer the most effective assist they’ll for each child and each household.