By Marcy Phipps, RN, a regular contributor to this blog. Her essay, “The Soul on the Head of a Pin,” was published in the May 2010 issue of AJN.

by patchy patch, via flickr

I first met Ella (name and some details have been changed) when she was my patient in the intensive care unit. She’d been riding in a car she wasn’t supposed to be riding in, heading to a party she wasn’t supposed to be going to, high on drugs and not wearing a seatbelt when she was involved in a high-speed crash that left her with broken bones and internal injuries. She was in the ICU for more than a month.

Her situation wasn’t that remarkable. Ella could easily represent a common category of ICU admissions—the young adult who is often described by her parents as a “good girl,” yet who lives wildly, fearless and flip, taking risks as if consequences will never apply. I feel particularly protective of these patients, mostly because I relate to them, on some level. I remember the sense of invincibility that came with youth, and when I’m caring for these girls I often marvel at consequences I avoided in my own life. I shake my head at my younger self, alternating between […]