Going to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is normally a sudden, sudden, and albeit unwelcome expertise, which means that many mother and father would not have sufficient time to anticipate going to the PICU to do analysis on what to anticipate in the midst of a scenario. Understanding what to anticipate earlier than that actuality ever arises may give you useful context if a go to to the PICU ought to happen, and this information may very well be useful to you, a member of the family, or a good friend sometime.

What’s the PICU, and what are you able to count on there?

The PICU is a unit throughout the hospital that’s particularly designed to take care of infants, kids, and adolescents with extreme and typically life-threatening diseases, accidents, or medical situations. In the event you haven’t been to a PICU earlier than, it may be arduous 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 help methods and allied well being professionals. You might even see a health care provider you already know effectively – a surgeon, a heart specialist, , an endocrinologist, and so on. however, the docs and nurse practitioners you will notice probably the most typically will probably be ones with explicit coaching and experience in caring for youngsters who require the PICU. They’re referred to as intensivists. You’ll rapidly be taught their names as a result of you’ll seemingly see them typically. You will notice them early within the morning, at bedside rounds, all through the day, and late into the night time. You’ll seemingly see a special physician at night time than you probably did through the day however know that they’re all speaking with each other to make sure that your youngster will get the care they want. Among the docs will nonetheless be in coaching. Those particularly coaching to develop into pediatric intensivists are referred to as fellows, whereas those coaching to develop into pediatricians are referred to as residents. All these docs and nurse practitioners are speaking with one another and with another docs and suppliers whose experience is required to care to your youngster whereas they’re sick.

The subsequent factor you’ll seemingly discover is the machines within the PICU. There will probably be lots of them, and so they all make noise. At nighttime, the assorted beeping noises can contribute to the bizarre sense that you’re on a spaceship far, far-off, moderately than tethered firmly to the identical constructing you got here to from the connected storage. Sadly, most of the noises are supposed to sound intrusive – alarming. And when the individual connected to that alarming machine is your youngster, alarming may be terrifying. More often than not, the alarms don’t imply one thing horrible is going on. They’re meant to attract consideration to issues that is perhaps an issue if they’re sustained over time, however transient beeping turns into the required go-along for all of the vigilance. You’ll have a nurse assigned to your youngster who can reply most, if not all, of your questions concerning the sounds you hear. Different machines may be scary even with out the noise – these are the machines that you realize are there to help physique capabilities that your youngster, for no matter cause, presently can’t do for themselves. These embrace 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 kind of machines to get higher, they are going to typically speak to you about it earlier than they should get it began.

Typically emergencies happen, and at these occasions, the PICU is the correct place to your youngster to be with a purpose to handle these emergencies as rapidly and effectively as doable. What I hope you realize in all these situations is that your care group will solely use the kinds of help that they suppose are vital, and so they need to have the ability to get your youngster off the machines and again to their regular functioning as rapidly and totally as doable. 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 in poor health children. It’s a spot that’s difficult and technical and infrequently horrifying. Nevertheless it’s a spot the place a group of execs has come collectively to offer one of the best assist they will for each child and each household.