Every deep-drawn breath : a critical care doctor on healing, recovery, and transforming medicine in the ICU / Wes Ely.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Prologue -- Fractured Lives : Embracing a New Normal -- Early History of Critical Care : Bumpy Gravel Roads to ICU Interstates -- Culture of Critical Care : The Era of Deep Sedation and Immobilization -- The World of Transplant Medicine : Harvesting the Right Path Forward -- Delirium Disaster : An Invisible Calamity for Patients and Families -- The View from the Other Side of the Bed : Illness Revisited -- Deciding My Path : Combining Research with Clinical Care -- Unshackling the Brain : Finding Consciousness in the ICU -- Awakening Change : Patients Are Resurfacing -- Spreading the Word : Putting New Ideas into Practice -- Finding the Person in the Patient : Hope through Humanization -- End-of-Life Care in the ICU : Patient and Family Wishes Can Come True -- Epilogue.

"Over the next ten years, 40 to 60 million people in this country will be admitted to the ICU. Most of these hospitalizations will be sudden, unexpected, and harrowing, experiences that can alter patients and their families physically and emotionally, with effects that endure for years. Every Deep-Drawn Breath is a rich blend of science, medical history, profoundly humane patient stories, and personal reflection. Dr. Wes Ely's mission is to prevent patients from being inadvertently harmed by the technology that is keeping them alive. Readers will experience the world of critical care through the eyes of this physician who drastically changed his clinical practice, and through cutting-edge research convinced others to do the same. For decades, millions ofICU survivors left the hospital with disabling symptoms including newly acquired dementia, depression, PTSD, and nerve damage, all now recognized as Post Intensive Care Syndrome, or PICS (a severe subset of Long Covid symptoms). Dr. Ely's groundbreaking investigations advanced the understanding of PICS and introduced crucial changes that reshaped intensive care: minimizing sedation, maximizing mobility, attending to the family, and providing supportive aftercare. Dr. Ely shows that this new way-technologyplus touch-is the future of healthcare, and is a proven path toward reclaiming life. Full of wisdom and heart, Every Deep-Drawn Breath is an essential resource for anyone who will be affected by critical illness, which is all of us"-- Provided by publisher.