Intensive care unit
An intensive care unit (ICU), critical care unit (CCU), intensive therapy unit (ITU), or intensive treatment unit (ITU) is a special part of a hospital. Usually, people that are very sick are sent there. They need to be looked at by a nurse or doctor very closely in case they get more sick while at the hospital.
Some ICUs may work with only one type of injuries.
History[change | change source]
In 1854, Florence Nightingale went to the Crimean War. There it was important to separate seriously wounded soldiers from less-seriously wounded. Nightingale reduced death rates from 40% to 2% by creating the concept of intensive care.
Because of a polio epidemic, Bjørn Ibsen established the first intensive care unit in Copenhagen in 1953. Patients with polio require more ventilation than normal; this is why Ibsen set up a special unit for them. The first person to use this idea in the United States was Dr. William Mosenthal, a surgeon at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
References[change | change source]
- "Intensive Care Unit". Internet Journal of Health. http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/ijh/vol3n2/icu.xml.
- "Remembering Dr. William Mosenthal: A simple idea from a special surgeon". Dartmouth Medicine. http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/spring04/html/vs_mosenthal.shtml. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
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