Crisis Prevention: Subclinical Signs of Impending Doom

Nurses care for patients with higher acuity rates than ever before, and nurses are expected to know more than ever before. The nurses job is not one of crisis management, it is one of crisis prevention. But to prevent a crisis, you must be able to see it coming before it arrives. Clinical signs are the ones they taught in nursing school: vital signs, lung sounds, neuro-vascular checks, etc. These signs are great for recognizing a dilemma because they occur after the bodys compensatory mechanisms have failed to correct the problem. What if we could see the signs that compensation was taking place before the process failed? We can. The actions and events occurring on a cellular level are those that spell wellness or illness in the human body. An understanding of cellular metabolism will help us understand the bodys compensatory mechanisms and see the danger signs before its too late. It is these subclinical signs of impending doom that this book depicts -- how to tell your patients are going bad before they keel over and die.