{"id":107774,"date":"2025-08-31T01:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T01:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107774\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T01:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T01:17:14","slug":"intensive-care-true-stories-of-healing-heartache-and-hope-from-inside-irish-childrens-medicine-where-split-second-decisions-mean-life-or-death-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107774\/","title":{"rendered":"Intensive Care &#8211; True Stories of Healing, Heartache and Hope from Inside Irish Children\u2019s Medicine: Where split-second decisions mean life or death \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Intensive Care: True Stories of Healing, Heartache and Hope from Inside Irish Children\u2019s Medicine <\/p>\n<p>Author: Suzanne Crowe  <\/p>\n<p>ISBN-13: 978-1399741064<\/p>\n<p>Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland<\/p>\n<p>Guideline Price: \u00a316.99<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In this memoir, Suzanne Crowe, paediatric intensivist and head of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/irish-medical-council\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/irish-medical-council\/\">Medical Council<\/a>, takes the reader from the complex reality of medical training to her work in the paediatric ICU, where split-second decisions mean life or death for the most vulnerable children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Crowe is powerful in her exactitude about the fear and uncertainty a career in medicine creates and the many times she wanted to quit. In one particularly harrowing moment of training, she is forced to intubate a child in a small hospital without adequate supervision. When handing over the patient &#8211; whose life she saved &#8211; she is scolded by the paediatric team for placing such a small intubation tube into the child\u2019s swollen trachea. This stays with Crowe as a directive: when she inhabits a senior role, this kind of criticism can wait until later. A kinder connective tissue for a future training narrative.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Early on, the writer states a healthcare professional\u2019s job is to narrate by \u201ccreating &#8230; from what the patient is saying, because the patient doesn\u2019t know what the doctor is looking for\u201d. But what kind of narrative is sought? Despite detailed accounts of children dying and living, the book states, \u201cany resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental\u201d. There is a missed opportunity to use the campaigning voice of Crowe\u2019s columns to illuminate how adequate services could have changed these stories. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/2024\/10\/12\/substance-abuse-a-scourge-on-doctors-medical-council-president-says\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stress and substance misuse are a \u2018scourge\u2019 on doctors, says medical council presidentOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">What is clear is the deep human commitment this work takes. When the writer grapples with the tragic death of her fourth child, just born, a \u201cnew narrative\u201d emerges. She is left \u201calmost mute.. at night I woke screaming because I couldn\u2019t find the baby\u201d. This grief and the exorcism of it charts the complexity of inhabiting two roles at once &#8211; both mother and physician. This dual perspective propels the story into something powerful. \u201cI no longer knew who I was, I had no identity, and no connection to who I had been before Beatrice and no ability to connect to the future,\u201c she writes. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Somehow, dedicated to paediatrics, she re-emerges. Gone is the softer boundary-less edge from the early days, replaced by lines  such as \u201cwe must take our work to the best possible conclusion\u201d. It\u2019s the  gruelling truth of what it takes to save the lives of all involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Intensive Care: True Stories of Healing, Heartache and Hope from Inside Irish Children\u2019s Medicine Author: Suzanne Crowe ISBN-13:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,134,77242],"class_list":["post-107774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-irish-medical-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}