The patient and family spend the most time with the bedside nurses. Their first job is to care for the patient.

From providing such fundamental human needs as feeding and bathing, to coordinating care across the hospital system, the nurses manage the care that a patient receives. The nurses administer medications, monitor their patients for signs of bettering or worsening health, and ensure the prescribed treatments and procedures occur.

Nurses also are a great resource for patients and families because they are accessible and can contact all of the healthcare team members. In most ICUs, the nurse will have one or two patients. This allows for continuous monitoring of the patient and a swift reaction to a patient’s needs. Because changes occur quickly
in critically ill patients, the nurse must be able to respond rapidly to any crisis.

An additional nurse, the supervising charge nurse, assists all of the nurses. The charge nurse organizes the flow of patients and personnel within the ICU, such as transferring patients and assigning nurses to patients for the next shift. Although a great source of information regarding unit policies and workflow, the charge nurse may not be as familiar with the patient as the bedside nurse.

The plan for a patient’s care usually is directed by the doctors, or physicians. Many different doctors work together to treat a patient. This group can be called the ICU team, primary team, or main team. Doctors who are trained in treating patients in the ICU may
be called intensivists. This team usually consists of the attending, fellow, resident, and intern.

The head decision-maker at any point of the treatment is the attending physician. The attending is the most senior, has the most experience caring for patients in the ICU, will direct the patient’s overall plan of care, and bears ultimate responsibility for the medical team. Attending physicians are considered to have finished their training in their specialty. There are many specialties, such as cardiology, neurology, anesthesiology, etc.

If the hospital trains doctors (known as a teaching hospital), the next-highest decision-maker is the fellow. This doctor, although very experienced, is still considered to be learning from the attending in their specialty. This training can last from 1 to 3 years.

Learning from both the attending and fellow are the residents, who are in training for 3 to 7 years, depending on their specialty. Most of a patient’s experience with the doctors is with residents. They are expected to know the current health data of the patients at all times. Residents who are in their first year may be called interns. They have just graduated from medical school and are not yet allowed to practice medicine by themselves.