Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM , where we instantly improve the lives for Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care, so that you can make informed
decisions, have PEACE OF MIND, real power, real control and so that you can influence decision making fast, even if you’re not a doctor or a nurse in Intensive Care!
In the last blog I talked about Part 1 of
The 7 most dangerous trends families of
critically ill Patients are currently facing in Intensive Care!(PART1)
You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link here.
In this week’s blog I want to talk about Part 2
of
The 7 most dangerous trends families of critically ill Patients are currently facing in Intensive Care!(PART2)
Before I get into today’s topic
and before I continue from last week’s blog I want to share a quote with you that I wrote on today’s topic and the quote says
A trend is defined as “a general direction in which something is developing or changing”.
It’s
therefore that you and your family need to be familiar with the latest trends and developments if your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care!
A trend sounds like it’s something fashionable or even desirable, however when it comes to your loved one’s critical illness in Intensive Care all you care about is results and outcomes not
trends!
Intensive Care teams take different stands and from their perspective it often is about the latest ‘trends’ in Intensive Care and how it applies to your critically ill loved ones care and treatment!
The
truth of the matter is that the “latest trends” in Intensive Care often include medical research and experimentation beyond your imagination that may or not be in your critically ill loved one’s “best interest”!
Your role, as always, is to ensure that your critically ill loved one is getting the best, most “up to date” and free from bias care and
treatment!
Care and treatment in Intensive Care must never be a result of what’s happening “behind the scenes” in Intensive Care, where hidden agendas often rule and result in inferior care and treatment!
Let’s get into today’s topic where I want to give you the remaining 3 most dangerous trends from
The 7 most dangerous trends families of critically ill Patients are currently facing in Intensive Care! (PART2)
This is to follow on from last week’s blog and
as most if you know by now, given that I have worked in Intensive Care for more than 15 years in three different countries, where I literally worked with thousands of critically ill Patients and their families and where I also worked as a Nurse Unit Manager in Intensive Care for more than 5 years, I really have some serious concerns about current and ongoing trends in Intensive Care that I believe I need to share with you!
If you don’t know about current worrisome trends in Intensive Care I believe you and your family are in big trouble!
The trends I have identified over the many years in Intensive Care, but I also identify them when I speak to you, the families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care in my 1:1 phone/skype counselling and consulting service or in my 1:1 email counselling and consulting service!
Let’s carry on from last week now!
- Intensive Care teams are the only
ones to know what’s “in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one!
I have always been amazed and still am amazed how quick Intensive Care teams decide “what’s in the best interest” of a critically ill Patient.
And again, I’m not talking about your loved one being in Intensive Care for one or two days. I’m talking about serious stuff here
where your critically ill loved one is either
those are the situations where the
rubber hits the road and those are the situations where you and your family need to be on high alert!
Those are the situations where you and your family need to make informed decisions, get peace of mind, control, power and influence!
Imagine your critically ill loved one is in one of the aforementioned difficult and
challenging situations, you certainly don’t want the Intensive Care team telling you “what’s in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one!
That’s BS!
And how could they possibly know what’s “in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one?
Chances are the Intensive Care team has never met you, your family or your critically ill loved one! Chances are that they don’t know anything about how you, your family and your critically ill loved one lives their lives!
Chances are that the Intensive Care team has no idea what possibly would be “in the best interest” for your
critically ill loved one. And how could they?
However, the truth of the matter is that they claim to know what’s “in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one by taking their agenda into account and not yours…
Sadly this is what happens across the board!
Think about it, the Intensive Care team has only known you and your critically ill loved one for two minutes and they have already made the decision about “what’s in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one! I call BS on that!
It’s a very short sighted approach, they don’t know you, nor your critically ill loved one and
they also don’t know what their perception of “in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one means in six months or a year’s time! What if they try and “sell” you and your family on a “withdrawal of treatment” and a “limitation of treatment” as being “in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one and you give in?
Recommended:
What does it mean six months from now or 12 months from now? It could literally mean life or death!
I can’t stress this enough, the bottom line is that whenever the Intensive Care team says that they think “it’s in the best interest” for
your critically ill loved one it’s only a perception that suits the Intensive Care team and their often “hidden agenda”, period!
Recommended:
The bottom line is that “in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one is Intensive Care team code for “it’s in the best interest for us,
because we stay in control”…
The choice is yours to challenge the Intensive Care team on every level to get the results that you want and deserve and I’m here to help you!
- Intensive Care teams keep hiding behind their medical jargon and their “expert” knowledge! Openness and transparency is lacking!
Most Intensive Care teams are trying to be the “smart” ones. After all they are academics, have studied for many years and are very accomplished people!
This often means that they have forgotten they are dealing with everyday people whenever they are looking after a critically ill Patient and their families!
You and your family don’t want to know about the medical language or the medical and academic jargon.
You and your family want the information presented in a way that you can understand and make sense of!
The next problem is also that many doctors simply think that they are on a pedestal
compared to the “everyday people” they are dealing with. They often don’t want to communicate with you on the same level!
And the other problem as well is that families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care often think that they have to put the doctors on a pedestal… something you need stop doing now!
That’s
what I’m here to do for you. I translate everything the Intensive Care team is telling you in a language that you speak and understand and I also show you what you need to look for “in between the lines” so to speak.
One of the reasons I started my INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM blog was that the only information about Intensive Care I could find online was medical research papers written from health
professionals for health professionals. Those research papers are written in a language that you have a hard time to understand!
Therefore public information about Intensive Care is almost hidden behind a wall of medical language and medical jargon…
You have come to the right place, here at INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM
not only am I advocating for you, your family and your critically ill loved one, I also explain everything to you and your family in a way that it makes sense to you! No hiding behind medical language or medical jargon!
- Intensive Care teams have scripted “what they say”, “when they say it”, “how they say it” and “what they don’t say” so that they stay in control of the interaction at
all times!
I have said this many times before and it’s so important that I say it again!
Most Intensive Care teams have scripted “what they say”, “when they say it”, “how they say it” and “what they don’t say” so that they can stay in control of the interactions at all times!
Again, I have seen this over and over again!
If you and your family don’t know what to look for and if you don’t know how to spot this behaviour you are in serious trouble!
It always pays off to be one step ahead of the Intensive Care team so that you are prepared for anything unexpected
that comes your way…
Related article/video:
Intensive Care can be an extremely frightening, scary, unpredictable and volatile environment and therefore
some preparation, doing your own research, knowing what to look for and knowing the right questions to ask, can go a long way in this incredibly challenging journey!
Now, the most important situations you need to look out for when the Intensive Care team is having their responses "scripted" are in family meetings.
Family meetings in Intensive Care are one of my special subjects and I have witnessed and participated in
dozens of family meetings in Intensive Care!
Most family meetings in Intensive Care are usually held to deliver bad news! Whenever the Intensive Care team is asking you for a family meeting you need to be on high alert!
Usually trouble is looming!
Most Intensive Care teams are a master of scripting family meetings in Intensive Care. Usually families have no idea in how to get what they want in a family meeting and they are usually baffled when they are coming out of a family meeting!
Don’t be a victim of circumstances and get prepared!
Related
article/video:
I know, you might say, “Patrik, I don’t have the time to do all this research and I don’t have the time to get prepared etc.”
The fact of the matter is that the Intensive Care team knows how to position themselves as well as your critically ill loved one in a family meeting. They are the chess master when it comes to “selling” you and
your family on what they want and they present it to you in a way that everything is “in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one!
As a matter of fact, you and your family can't afford not to be prepared!
What's your positioning?
Positioning is everything! What’s your positioning? Do you nod just everything off that the Intensive Care team is presenting to you as being “in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one?
The questions that you need to ask yourself is that what you and your family want? What do you want for your critically
ill loved one? What do you think is “in the best interest” for your critically ill loved one?
Get prepared and have strong mental positioning yourself!
Recommended:
- Negativity from the Intensive Care team
This is probably the worst out of all trends!
The number of the families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care that come to me with their questions say to me that
the Intensive Care team is negative!
And that’s not only a very concerning trend, it’s also something that seems to happen across the board!
Given all of the challenges that you and your family are already dealing with, the last thing you need is negativity!
Sometimes, if not in most instances, the Intensive Care team is using negativity to protect themselves as well as their professional reputation.
Let me explain.
If your critically ill loved one is in a really difficult situation and has minimal
chances to survive, the Intensive Care team will most likely be very quick to point this out to you and therefore will be negative.
If they do that, they have protected their professional reputation as well as reduced their risk to be getting sued by you and your family.
If they promised you and your family that
they’ll save your critically ill loved one’s life no matter what and then they can’t or won't, you could in theory take them to court for negligence.
Therefore it’s a lot safer for the Intensive Care team to be negative.
Furthermore, if the Intensive Care team takes a negative and limited point of view it’ll be a lot
easier for them to impose their mainly “hidden agenda” on you.
By that I mean, if they stay negative from the start, it’ll be much easier for
them to “sell” you and your family on a “withdrawal” or a “limitation” of treatment as being “in the best interest” of your critically ill loved one!
Whether a “withdrawal” or “limitation” of treatment is “in the best interest” of your critically ill loved one is up for debate anyway and as you know by now, the positioning of your critically ill loved one’s diagnosis, prognosis as well as care and treatment by the Intensive Care team is often a result of what’s happening “behind the scenes” in Intensive Care!
Therefore you need to question any negativity that’s coming from the Intensive Care team from the start and you need to have your own strong
mental positioning, period!
Your friend
Patrik
phone 415- 915-0090 in the USA/Canada
phone 03- 8658 2138 in Australia/ New Zealand
phone
0118 324 3018 in the UK/Ireland
If you have a question you need answered, just hit reply to this email or send it to me at support@intensivecarehotline.com
Or if you want to be featured on our PODCAST with your story, just email me at support@intensivecarehotline.com
phone 415-915-0090 in the USA/Canada 
phone 03 8658 2138 in Australia/ New Zealand 
phone 0118 324 3018 in the UK/
Ireland 
Phone now on Skype at patrik.hutzel
PS: Keep your
eye out on a couple of new Ebooks that I will be publishing soon!
Your Friend
Patrik Hutzel
Critical Care Nurse
Founder& Editor
WWW.INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM