Fundamentals of critical care : a textbook for nursing and healthcare students / edited by Ian Peate and Barry Hill.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The critical care unit -- Organisational influences -- Legal and ethical issues -- Professional issues in critical care -- Using an evidence-based approach -- Nursing care -- Skin integrity -- Shock -- Communication -- Electronic health records -- Pharmacology -- Anaesthesia and sedation -- Medicines management and drug calculations -- Neurological critical care -- Cognition -- Respiratory care: intubation and mechanical ventilation -- Lung function in critical care -- Cardiac physiology -- Cardiovascular critical care -- Fluids and electrolytes in critically ill patients -- Critical care emergencies -- Gastrointestinal critical care -- Nutrition in critical care -- Renal critical care -- Endocrine critical care -- Haematological and immunological critical care -- Musculoskeletal considerations in critical care -- Musculoskeletal considerations in critical care -- Burn care within a critical care setting -- Maternal critical care -- Critical care transfers -- Rehabilitation after critical illness -- Dying and death.

"The education of student nurses in critical care is becoming an increasing challenge at this time of financial pressures in the National Health Service. The shortage of critical care nurses has encouraged many Intensive Care Units (ICUs) to employ newly qualified staff, highlighting the importance of preregistration education in ensuring that these staff are equipped with the skills to care for acutely ill patients. Significant numbers of critically ill patients are being managed outside specialist critical care facilities. It is therefore essential to ensure that graduating nurses are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to assess and manage critically ill patients, regardless of their location within the health care setting. Despite this, concerns have been raised that nurses lacked the skills and knowledge to recognize and manage these situations. It was subsequently recommended that student nurses should develop skills to identify and manage acutely ill patients. Despite this, concern still remains over the ability to recognize and manage deteriorating patients in both students (Cooper et al., 2010) and registered nurses (Cooper et al., 2011). Nursing education providers need to anticipate, plan and respond to these changing needs and expectations"-- Provided by publisher.