Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Psychiatric problems in the ICU
The American Journal of Medicine this month has a review on the management of psychiatric problems in critically ill patients. It is a well written, practical, no-nonsense review that would be good teaching material for residents and other trainees. That is swell, but not why I decided to blog it. Despite its title and ostensible subject matter, it actually devotes a substantial amount of its text to staff stress stressburn-out in the ICU--this got more column space than depression! What is the world coming to when someone writing a review for the AJM on patient problems in the ICU decides that staff stress and suffering are worthy of mention? Maybe medicine in the 21st Century will be a bit saner the the last....
