Daniel Martin, Editor in Chief of JICS shares his must-reads from the latest edition of JICS
Our Chief Editor, Daniel Martin brings you a snapshot of two standout articles from our latest issue of the Journal of Intensive Care. He has selected these pieces because they tackle subjects that are not only acutely relevant to your daily practice but also offer crucial insights into the broader landscape of critical care. From navigating profoundly difficult ethical conversations to quantifying the colossal economic burden of a common condition, these papers are essential reading.
Withdrawal of life sustaining therapies for awake patients in critical care: The benefits of a collaborative intensivist & palliative care approach.
Edwardson et al.
This superbly written review article tackles a difficult and demanding aspect of intensive care medicine, the withdrawal of life support in patients who are awake. This is likely to be an area most of us have less familiarity with than the withdrawal of life support in sedated or comatose patients. The authors advocate a multidisciplinary approach with early involvement of a palliative care team, who will have considerable experience and expertise in this area. As the authors describe, the involvement of a palliative care team may aid conversations with patients and their families and provide guidance when prescribing medications to alleviate challenging symptoms. The article includes some language to consider when discussing end of life with patients, and a very helpful case example.
Admissions, mortality and financial burden associated with acute hospitalisations for sepsis between 2006 and 2018: A national population-level study.
Szakmany et al.
This fascinating piece of work examines the economic burden placed on hospitals in Wales as a result of adults being admitted to hospital with sepsis. Using data from the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank, the authors looked at over a decade of information, analysing data from over 38,000 hospital admissions. Whilst sepsis-related admissions increased during the study’s capture period, mortality thankfully decreased. In total, more than £340 million was spent on this inpatient care.
We are immensely proud to publish work of this calibre - none of this work would be possible without the generous support of our community and we extend our sincere gratitude to all our members who provide the bedrock for this research and publication.
We highly recommend diving into the full articleswhich you can find in the latest issue of the Journal of Intensive Care.
Follow the link below to read more and see the full range of work our community is producing.