Sunday April 22, 2007
What Critical Care Medicine is all about?

"For any human there are 2 critical needs to be alive - Oxygen and Water - and thats what Critical Care Medicine is all about ! To achieve good harmony of oxygen supply and consumption or in precise words oxygen extraction ratio as well as dynamics of fluid. We put due emphasis on hemodynamics but many times forget the other essential, the oxygen. Improving oxygen delivery by improving cardiac index, Hb and oxygen saturation as well as the quest to improve the value of mixed venous oxygen may be the another core target for patients in ICU. In sicker patients pulmonary artery catheter may still be the source of guiding value for improving oxygen extraction ratio".



(Recalled this from one of the conferences I had during my Critical Care fellowship. Lately I found trend among housestaff to finish ICU rotations without understanding the basics of oxygen content, supply and consumption. Point is to teach and encourage housestaff to understand the basic concept of hemodynamics and its relationship with oxygen delivery (DO2) and oxygen consumption (VO2) and importance of mixed venous and mixed central venous (SVO2 & ScVO2) oxygen saturations. To teach them - how to calculate arterial and venous oxygen content etc.

- Editor, Iqbal Ratnani M.D)