Intensive Care

What is Intensive Care?

The ICU, or Intensive Care Unit, is a department of the hospital or health care facility that admits and treats the sickest patients, patients who are critically ill or dealing with an imminent health crisis. Often these can be dangerous or life-threatening and require immediate action and attention.

My Experience

I had the great privilege to train under Prof A Argent and other great intensivists at Red Cross Children’s Hospital Cape Town Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for three rotations. I have nearly exclusively spent all my on-call nights during registrarship in ICU or neonatal ICU increasing my exposure and training time in the intensive care department significantly. I have learnt to handle extremely complicated patients with high-risk conditions in the intensive-care setting and value the approach of a multidisciplinary team as required by the patient. I am performing the vast majority of my invasive intensive care procedures personally which leads to better patient care and outcomes.