Consulting for Families
Sadly, most people are not aware of this, including many of those who work in the ICU. That being the case, when your loved one is in the intensive care unit, the last thing you want to be doing is sifting through scientific papers and trying to figure out how to educate hospital staff on what’s best for your family member.
We believe patients should remain autonomous whenever possible, and clinicians should facilitate meaningful communication with patients and their families to make sure they have a say in the kind of care they’re receiving. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.
It can be tough to navigate this situation alone, not least because your own loved one is in the hospital. Let us shoulder some of the burden by giving you the information you need to understand how to improve your loved one’s chances, and the insight on how to apply that knowledge as their patient care advocate.
Through our services, you’ll be able to:
- Understand your role as a loved one in the ICU
- Understand how to improve your family member’s quality of life when they return home
- Learn how to become a patient care advocate for your family member
- Know what can be done to reduce your loved one’s chances of dying or suffering other complications
I stumbled upon Kali’s podcast midway through my anesthesia critical care fellowship in February 2021. At our institution, I got the impression that patients in the ICU either got better on their own or had a prolonged and complicated course to LTAC or death. In her podcast, Kali explained that LTAC was rarely the outcome for patients in the Awake and Walking ICU in Salt Lake City.
Their ICU survivors hardly ever got trached, PEGed, or sent to LTAC, and literally walked out of the hospital in condition as close to their previous health as they could be. Although the concept of using no sedation on ventilated patients was completely foreign to me, it made sense based on what I had read in the literature. I devoured all of the episodes from the beginning, many of them bringing tears and regret for my ignorance, followed by inspiration and hope in later episodes. Listening to her podcast has been one of the most profound experiences in my short, eight-year career in medicine.
After discovering the no sedation, early mobility practice at the Awake and Walking ICU, my focus shifted to bringing it to my own institution. I visited Salt Lake City in March to witness it with my own eyes. Since then, I’ve been in touch closely with Kali and Louise to learn the practical approaches to sedation wean and sedation avoidance for newly intubated patients in the ICU.
Implementation has been challenged by pushback at the bedside, but knowing how most patients can be off sedation and comfortable allowed me to advocate for the patients. So far, four patients were successfully kept off of sedation after getting intubated, and two of them immediately smiled at me as they woke up from induction meds. Kali and the members of the Awake and Walking ICU have decades of experience in this approach.
Mikita Fuchita, MD
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