The intensive care unit can be an intimidating and frightening place. Dr. Goitein, who has practiced medicine in intensive care settings, has created a very practical guide to help family and friends advocate and care for their loved ones there. She begins by noting that they will spend a great deal of time waiting. She then discusses the various medical staff members and their roles, including, most importantly, who is actually in charge of the patient’s care. She covers visiting times and protocols, common medical procedures, and all the monitors, alarms, and machines that sustain life, including diagrams. The author then deals with the difficult situation of long-term ICU stays, death, and dying. She also explains post-ICU care and rehabilitation. Being an advocate for the patient is vital, and Dr. Goitein tells readers how to do this: have a copy of current medical records and advance directives, and know when to ask questions. She also notes the importance of self-care for the family and discusses the financial aspects of intensive care. This is an excellent resource for public and consumer health libraries.
— Booklist
Goitein provides a comprehensive treatise about the reality for patients and families experiencing intensive care in 21st-century US hospitals. Compassion is evident in the "What can you do" sections, addressing questions that families will want to ask, and suggesting whom they should seek for answers. Exposing the dynamics of how a health care team works in the ICU setting, Goitein aims to help families successfully navigate the intricate system.... Ideally, this resource is for primary care professionals to use with their most vulnerable populations with potential for ICU care. In addition to public libraries, senior and health care resource centers, chaplains, parish nurses, and social workers in community care settings may find the book useful. The complexity of care explanation would help beginning health care professionals as they decide on practice focus and whether this service fits their aptitudes and abilities. While Goitein's detailed explanation of the mechanics of care is central, the most critical takeaway is the modeling of personal interaction between health professionals, their patients, and families as they make life-defining decisions. Recommended. All readers.
— Choice Reviews
Dr. Lara Goitein, who spent 12 years as an intensive care physician, provides comprehensive yet easy-to-understand answers to myriad questions like these and many others you might not think to ask. Ideally, families would have this book at the ready when needed, like a first-aid manual, because the initial days in an I.C.U. are often the most stressful and disconcerting.... Dr. Goitein’s book [is] so valuable and [is] destined to remain on my bookshelf until my dying day.
— The New York Times
Even before COVID-19, millions of Americans needed ICU care each year, and the majority of them survived. But we’ve never had, until Dr. Lara Goitein wrote this book, a clear and compassionate handbook for how to understand, much less negotiate, the ICU. From COVID to catheters, the business of saving imperiled lives is rendered here in straightforward (and often, poetic) terms, which reminds us that all those drawing breath should be familiar with what occurs in an ICU. This is the book that makes that possible.
— Paul E. Farmer, MD, PhD, Kolokotrones University Professor, Harvard University; chair, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; chief, Division of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and cofounder, Partners in Health
Lara Goitein has produced an essential guide to one of the most difficult journeys through the one of most difficult wards in any hospital—the Intensive Care Unit. As an intensive care doctor herself, she is the perfect guide to provide the perspective, compassion, and acceptance that families and patients need as they navigate this intense journey.
— Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer"
With our aging population and now with Covid, more and more people are experiencing a stay in a hospital’s intensive care unit. While all of us have seen the inside of an ICU on TV shows and movies, actually having a family member in “the unit” is one of life’s most disorienting experiences. Who are all of these people? What are they doing? What is that machine? And, most importantly, what will happen to my loved one? In The ICU Guide for Families, intensive care physician Lara Goitein manages to demystify the ICU in a way that balances technical accuracy with true compassion. It is a must-have resource for families who find themselves anxiously trying to navigate this unfamiliar world.
— Robert M. Wachter, MD, chair, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, and author, New York Times-bestseller “The Digital Doctor”
There is no more overwhelming and isolating experience than having someone you love surrounded by machines in an ICU. In The ICU Guide for Families, Dr. Goitein combines an insider’s experience, a teacher’s patience, a writer’s clarity, and a physician’s compassion to provide readers with all of the information I wish I, as a doctor at the bedside, had the time or the skills to give myself. But you need to read this book before you need to read this book. Read it if you are having a serious operation. Read it if you are talking to a parent about their wishes for intensive care. Read it if someone you love has someone they love who is sick in an ICU.
— Gordon D. Rubenfeld, MD, MSc, FRCP(C), professor of medicine, Inter-Departmental Division of Critical Care, University of Toronto; Trauma, Critical Care, and Emergency Medicine at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto
It’s not necessarily an easy read. But suffice to say, you will have the most ideal guide in Dr. Goitein, and the writing choices and descriptors she employs.
— Colin Jordan, Medium
Merely the mention of the Covid-19 pandemic adds a chilly note to any proceeding, literary or otherwise. But with the tonalities measured and balanced in Dr. Goitein’s The ICU Guide for Families, such a mentioning seems just worldly. It folds seamlessly into the fabric of the read, ironically a comfort in the sense it feels Goitein analyzes everything relevant to the modern-day, hypothetical ICU scenario. She isn’t afraid of describing, or ever shies away from the ramifications of, the potential pitfalls and bumps along the way. Yet every example is often countered by the presence of genuine silver linings. It reinforces that dealing with the sickness of a loved one is never a clear-cut deal.
— The Hollywood Digest
This is an easy, helpful read that is both practical and kind. It is an excellent source of information that will give you agency and help you become a capable advocate for your loved one. Buy it, keep it on your shelf next to your first aid kit, and hand to a friend when they need it.
— Snack Girl