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Editorial: as others see us
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hhh
AUSTRALIAN CRITICAL CARE
Editorial: US i This issue of Australian Critical Care explores the faces of critical care nursing: our image, our roles, the work we do. It offers us an opportunity to see ourselves from the perspectives of students and patients, as intellectuals and as technological experts. Although the various foci of critical care nursing are often apparent in the pages of ACC, rarely do we consider in such stark relief what we do and how others see us. Happell challenges us to see critical care nursing from the perspective of commencing nursing students. Many of these students have no previous nursing experience; their views are those of any interested health-care consumer. Happell demonstrates the strong bias toward drama - the adrenaline rush, the heart-stopping (and hopefully heart-starting!) action these students hold in their perceptions of critical care nursing. These perceptions may be heavily influenced by media portrayals of the profession and, Happell reports, play a large part in attracting students to the specialty. The problem becomes one of retention when, having been lured by the promise of unending excitement, the novice critical care nurse finds him or herself in an environment in which the physical, emotional and intellectual demands are unceasing and there is often limited reward. Chaboyer and Creamer offer a fascinating look into these intellectual demands in the critical care setting. Their study confirms the need for both an 'inquisitive mind', with a t h i i t for life-long learning, and a 'quick response', the ability to handle the rapid changes associated with caring for unstable patients. At the same time, however, it identifies the continuous, painstaking vigilance and attention to detail, combined with the ability to look beyond those details to see the 'big picture', that form a major portion of effective critical care nursing. The educational preparation for critical care nurses must provide students with the knowledge and skills they require at the bedside, but must also nurture the attitudes necessary to deal with these multiple demands.
update of one of the ever-changing modes of mechanical ventilation employed at the bedside of the critical ill patient. They describe the technology, physiology and implications of pressureregulated volume control ventilation. While our 'inquisitive minds*enjoy the ,-hallenge of learning and applying new practices, we must also consider the influences such advances have on our patients' experiences. Julie Hunt looks at the experiences of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. She not only explores their expectations but also compares 'what they saw' with 'what they got'. This study links those of Happell, Chaboyer and Creamer and Smith-Blair et a1 to the patient's world and combines preconceptions, including the influences of the media and the reality of the intellectual, emotional and technological demands of caring for another human being in a life-threatening situation. Vulnerability, fear, reassurance and security: these all form part of the patient's world and that of the critical care nurse. This issue presents more of the abstracts from the 1998 ASM. In them you will find further echoes of the image of critical care nursing: technical experts, critical thmkers, empathetic practitioners. Finally, in the guest editorial, Ged Williams updates our professional face, sharing the latest developments on nationalisation. In this issue, then, we present images of critical care nursing .. to see ourselves as others see us.
.
Prof. Sandra V Dunn
ritical c ltion iefs ipate ir ~
VOLUME 12
NUMBER 2
JUNE 1999
hhh
AUSTRALIAN CRITICAL CARE
Editorial: US i This issue of Australian Critical Care explores the faces of critical care nursing: our image, our roles, the work we do. It offers us an opportunity to see ourselves from the perspectives of students and patients, as intellectuals and as technological experts. Although the various foci of critical care nursing are often apparent in the pages of ACC, rarely do we consider in such stark relief what we do and how others see us. Happell challenges us to see critical care nursing from the perspective of commencing nursing students. Many of these students have no previous nursing experience; their views are those of any interested health-care consumer. Happell demonstrates the strong bias toward drama - the adrenaline rush, the heart-stopping (and hopefully heart-starting!) action these students hold in their perceptions of critical care nursing. These perceptions may be heavily influenced by media portrayals of the profession and, Happell reports, play a large part in attracting students to the specialty. The problem becomes one of retention when, having been lured by the promise of unending excitement, the novice critical care nurse finds him or herself in an environment in which the physical, emotional and intellectual demands are unceasing and there is often limited reward. Chaboyer and Creamer offer a fascinating look into these intellectual demands in the critical care setting. Their study confirms the need for both an 'inquisitive mind', with a t h i i t for life-long learning, and a 'quick response', the ability to handle the rapid changes associated with caring for unstable patients. At the same time, however, it identifies the continuous, painstaking vigilance and attention to detail, combined with the ability to look beyond those details to see the 'big picture', that form a major portion of effective critical care nursing. The educational preparation for critical care nurses must provide students with the knowledge and skills they require at the bedside, but must also nurture the attitudes necessary to deal with these multiple demands.
update of one of the ever-changing modes of mechanical ventilation employed at the bedside of the critical ill patient. They describe the technology, physiology and implications of pressureregulated volume control ventilation. While our 'inquisitive minds*enjoy the ,-hallenge of learning and applying new practices, we must also consider the influences such advances have on our patients' experiences. Julie Hunt looks at the experiences of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. She not only explores their expectations but also compares 'what they saw' with 'what they got'. This study links those of Happell, Chaboyer and Creamer and Smith-Blair et a1 to the patient's world and combines preconceptions, including the influences of the media and the reality of the intellectual, emotional and technological demands of caring for another human being in a life-threatening situation. Vulnerability, fear, reassurance and security: these all form part of the patient's world and that of the critical care nurse. This issue presents more of the abstracts from the 1998 ASM. In them you will find further echoes of the image of critical care nursing: technical experts, critical thmkers, empathetic practitioners. Finally, in the guest editorial, Ged Williams updates our professional face, sharing the latest developments on nationalisation. In this issue, then, we present images of critical care nursing .. to see ourselves as others see us.
.
Prof. Sandra V Dunn
ritical c ltion iefs ipate ir ~
VOLUME 12
NUMBER 2
JUNE 1999