Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

I.C.U. Syndrome

My I.C.U. Patient Lived. Is That Enough?
By Daniela J. Lamas NYT April 2, 2017
[This is a fine article by Dr. Lamas, a Critical Care physician in Boston.  Anything she writes is worth reading]

FULL TEXT

ONE morning I was at a support group for patients who had survived a critical illness and their family members. It seems simple — a few doctors, a social worker, a psychiatrist, former patients and their husbands and wives, a conference room, pastries, coffee.

As many as one in three patients sick enough to require a ventilator might develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Anxiety and depression are equally common, if not more so. The name for the constellation of symptoms often experienced by survivors of critical illness — post-intensive care syndrome.

As I.C.U. doctors, we can learn from our patients and their families and they can learn from one another, simply by sitting in a room together and paying attention to what unfolds. [Holds true for all health care professionals]

On Listening

Ranjana Srivastava has a memorable essay in the New England Journal of Medicine about listening to patients. Her piece, entitled “Nourishment” speaks to all of us in health care.

She writes that a patient, former pastor, told her “The gift of silent communion is the greatest gift you can give someone.” She learned that with some patients “instead of listening in order to reply, I [now] listen to understand, shielded temporarily from the pressure of performance.”

This reminded me of some lines Andre Dubus wrote in a short story that described how often people confessed their problems to him “and I listened and talked a lot and and never helped anyone at all. So now if someone comes to me I offer what I know I can give: the friendship of a listening face.”* Srivastava has some remarkably insights in her Perspective piece in the November 26, 2015 New England Journal of Medicine. It’s a keeper! Download Nourishment.Srivastava

*Andre Dubus, “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” appears in the collection “Separate Flights.”