(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best critical care books

I like this book: Critical Care Nursing Certification: Preparation, Review, and Practice Exams by Ahrens, Prentice and Kleinpell
http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Care-Nursing-Certification-Preparation/dp/007166789X

I like the “Faust”, if that is what you’re looking for... it has chapter of 2 pages per subject.

https://www.amazon.com/Fausts-Anesthesiology-Review-Michael-Murray/dp/1437713696

Edit: didn’t see you were looking for rural emergencies, sorry. You might want to check any military handbooks though.
I have a USMC anesthesia field manual which is very handy, I got it from a colleague, so I don’t know where to buy it.

There are lots of rural/mountain/military anesthesia manuals which aren’t large like ‘de lange’

Do you think that the book you recommended for me:

https://www.amazon.com/Cardiac-Surgery-Essentials-Critical-Nursing/dp/0763757624

would be outdated because it was published almost 8 years ago? Or do you think it would be still relevant?

Wall and Melzack's Textbook of Pain. Probably buried in Chapter 6, but my index is being less useful than normal and I don't feel like dredging through the text itself. It's a tad dry.

However, Zhao is often cited (free pdf if you want to read the whole thing, that's just the abstract). That one talks more about A fiber stimulation releasing endogenous opioids, which then in turn represses nociceptive signaling. For a bit of background, C fibers are always sending low-grade nociceptive signals to the brain, they are just silenced at a central level. You only notice them when they're either not being actively inhibited or when they send stronger signals. So "silencing" them doesn't mean they stop firing, it means that the signal gets silenced at a central level (i.e. brain and spinal cord).

What kind of ICU are you looking to get into? When I first started, I got into a cvicu and got this as my first reference book. I really liked their chapter on cardiac meds and hemodynamics.

https://www.amazon.com/Cardiac-Surgery-Essentials-Critical-Nursing/dp/0763757624

I did get a separate hemodynamics book though. That's still one of my weaknesses.

http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Critical-Nursing-Second-Edition/dp/0071664424

Understanding the Essentials of... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0134146344?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Marino ICU book.

Quick Reference to Critical Care

The worst part for me when I was new was not being sure of myself. Luckily I did have a good orientation and preceptor that forced me to look everything up, I mean everything.

It was really annoying in the beginning because I was like, aren't you supposed to be showing me how to do stuff. Basically she said no I'm supposed to be showing you how to find answers to questions, because after your orientation is over, you're still going to have questions, years from now you will still have questions and you're going to approach a person and ask them but they may not know or they may be wrong. It's my job to show you how to critically think.

She never said any of that but she forced me to look up everything and showed me how to do that.

Know how to find information. Look up your polices and review all of them when you have time: you will not remember them all, but you will remember that they exist.

If I could reccomend two books to help you it would be the AACN procedure manual (your unit should have this reference available to you, if not talk to your admin team), and The ICU Book (you should buy a copy of it for yourself).

Nothing impresses me more than a nurse who has a question and at least tried to look up the answer, right or wrong, and is coming to me just to make sure they are correct or work through the problem.