RT Book, Section
A1 Tobin, Martin J.
A1 Jubran, Amal
A2 Tobin, Martin J.
SR Print(0)
ID 57079614
T1 Chapter 58. Weaning from Mechanical Ventilation
T2 Principles and Practice of Mechanical Ventilation, 3e
YR 2013
FD 2013
PB The McGraw-Hill Companies
PP New York, NY
SN 978-0-07-173626-8
LK accessanesthesiology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=57079614
RD 2024/04/19
AB Thirty  years  ago,  the  weaning  of  patients  from  the  ventilator  was  relegated  to  nurses  and  respiratory  therapists.  It  aroused  little  interest  among  physicians.  It  certainly  wasn’t  thought  worthy  of  serious  scientific  inquiry.  All  this  has  changed.  No  other  area  of  critical  care  has  undergone  so  great  a  transformation.  But  the  illumination  has  also  cast  shadows.  In  particular,  discussion  of  weaning  is  now  bedeviled  by  imprecise  language.  This  can  be  seen  as  just  deserts  insofar  as  few  clinicians  use  the  term  weaning  in  the  strict  literal  sense—a  gradual  reduction  in  the  level  of  ventilator  support.  Instead,  most  patients  today  are  taken  off  the  ventilator  cold  turkey.  It  would  be  fine  if  the  confused  language  stopped  there.  But  this  is  only  one  small  example  of  how  fundamental  scientific  misunderstanding  has  arisen  from  imprecise  word  choices.