Philip D. Lumb – författare

This atlas is designed to provide an all-inclusive resource that describes step by step how to perform the essential bedside procedures required to provide optimal care to the critically ill patient.

This volume is published under the auspices of the World Federation of Societies of Intensive Care Medicine, which consists of 48 members societies (both medical and nursing) - a truly world wide organisation - and whose aim is to promote excellence in the care of critically ill patients.

The World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine (WFSIC- CM) has reached the age of maturity. Physicians, nurses, and many others associated with the field of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine will be coming from all corners of the world to Florence, Italy in August, 2009 to celebrate the 10th quadrennial congress. Every 4 years for the last 36 years, congresses in the magnificent venues of London (1973), Paris (1977), Washington (1981), Jerusalem (1985), Kyoto (1989), Madrid (1993), Ottawa (1997), Sydney (2001), and Buenos Aires (2005) have sig- fied an ever-developing process which has resulted in the four pillars of the field of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine, namely partnership, ethics, professionalism, and competence. The first pillar is based on a stronger interdisciplinary collaboration and a mul- professional partnership in the field of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine. In recent decades, professional activity in medicine has been regulated by well-defined, universal principles, such as the welfare of the patient, autonomy, social justice, and the patient–physician relationship. The second pillar, ethics, has offered welcomed assistance to all these principles in establishing an ethics curriculum.