Critical Care and Emergency Nursing
Core concepts
Emergency and critical care prioritize airway, breathing, circulation, and neurologic status. Know triage principles (mass casualty: save the most people with available resources), shock types and early signs, sepsis recognition, and rapid response triggers. Understand ventilator basics, arterial blood gas interpretation, and post-resuscitation care.
Traps in questions
Questions reward recognizing deterioration before it becomes arrest: rising respiratory rate, falling blood pressure, altered mentation, and decreased urine output. Another trap is choosing a definitive treatment before stabilization, or missing that a patient in shock needs fluids or blood products rather than pain medication. Watch for questions that confuse distributive, hypovolemic, cardiogenic, and obstructive shock patterns.
Worked example
A patient with a fever, tachycardia, hypotension, and confusion after surgery. Rule of thumb: this is suspected sepsis; obtain cultures, give broad-spectrum antibiotics and fluids promptly, and escalate. Do not wait for all lab results before treating.
Study strategy
Practice rapid ABCDE assessments and memorize the early warning signs of each shock type.