Critical care medicine specializes in caring for the most seriously ill patients. These patients are best treated in an ICU staffed by experienced personnel. Some hospitals maintain separate units for special populations (eg, cardiac, surgical, neurologic, pediatric, or neonatal patients). ICUs have a high nurse:patient ratio to provide the necessary high intensity of service, including treatment and monitoring of physiologic parameters.

Supportive care for the ICU patient includes provision of adequate nutrition (see Nutritional Support: Enteral Tube Nutrition) and prevention of infection, stress ulcers and gastritis (see Gastritis and Peptic Ulcer Disease: Prevention), and pulmonary embolism (see Pulmonary Embolism: Prevention). Because 15 to 25% of patients admitted to ICUs die there, physicians should know how to minimize suffering and help dying patients maintain dignity (see The Dying Patient).

Last full review/revision October 2012 by Soumitra R. Eachempati, MD

Content last modified November 2012