Critical Care

Clinicians need to have a better understanding of the potential impact of patients’ anxiety sensitivity, or “fear of fear,” according to an article published in American Journal of Critical Care. When a patient has anxiety sensitivity, they misinterpret nonthreatening symptoms as threatening, assessing the potential meaning across physical, social or cognitive domains. These “what if” thoughts may trigger a spiral effect, stimulating the nervous system and resulting in stronger sensations and further catastrophic misinterpretations. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is home to the state’s largest adult Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Program. And most recently, it became the only adult program in Tennessee with a mobile team that can initiate ECMO on patients transported to the Medical Center by its ambulances. Read More

A 27-year-old Nashville woman is thankful a neuro critical care nurse practitioner from Vanderbilt University Medical Center was nearby when she suffered a stroke last month. Read More

Arthur P. “Art” Wheeler, M.D., professor of Medicine and the longtime director of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Adult Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU), died Thursday, Dec. 17, from cancer. He was 58. Read More

More than 250 critical care nurse practitioners and physician assistants from 41 states gathered at Vanderbilt recently for the fourth annual ACNP/PA Critical Care Boot Camp. Read More

In the latest VUCast: ICU patients are leaving hospitals with a dementia-like disease; What’s the fate of the Republican Party?; Hear from Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Distinguished Visiting Professor Jon Meacham; and It's time to celebrate -- the Rate My Professor 2013 rankings are in. All this and more in Vanderbilt’s online newscast. Watch now. Read More

Dysfunction of the endothelial cells that line blood vessels may contribute to delirium and coma in critically ill patients – and could be a target for therapy. Read More