Being human is an often difficult thing to turn on and off when treating patients on the verge of life and death. Emotional attachment creeps up on you in the dark whilst working in Intensive Care. Without even knowing it you are starting to put emotional energy into a patient and becoming attached.
Recently while on a placement in Intensive care, I was involved in the twice daily treatment of a young girl with GB. I first saw her when she was admitted to intensive care following a five day history of neurological deterioration. She was ventilated and sedated and continuing to deteriorate when I began my acute respiratory care. Intensive care is a place that easily numbs you, you get excited when one of your patients can talk, so the argument can be fought either way - the lack of emotional interaction with the patient makes you less likely to become attached OR the critical situations the patients are in and the frequency of treatment makes you more susceptible.
I felt for this girl just after reading her file, meeting her and treating her twice daily faced me with a big challenge - to treat her as 'just another patient'. All patients are entitled to the same service. Finding the balance between being her friend and being her physiotherapists was the challenge.
So this patient began to improve, her sedation was reduced and her communication became frustrating. The muscular control of her jaw and lips made it difficult to lip read post trache insertion. She was becoming very frustrated, a deterioration over five days from a normal girl to not being able to move, breath for her self, communicate! I went out of my way to find some sort of communication tool we could point to and she could nod and spell out words etc.
I found myself going out of my way a few more times for various other things, and then realised my balance was out, I was becoming too emotionally involved.
So this lesson, amongst many, has taught me more about the balance involved in patient care. The balance between treating a patient and treating a person.
I will soon be doing my cardio placement at an intensive care unit. I'm glad I came across your post as I'm not one to be immune to becoming emotionally attached to patients and it's a reminder that I'll need to prepare myself mentally for my prac in ICU so that the emotional attachment doesn't affect my treatment and patient care. It will be difficult, but as you say, I'll have to work hard to find the balance between treating pateints vs treating people.
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