Critical care medicine deals with life support or organ support for patients who are critically ill. A critical care physician diagnoses, treats, and supports patients who may be in an intensive care unit, or who may have multiple organ dysfunction. Patients who receive intensive care treatment are usually critically ill patients who are treated after major surgery and require intensive monitoring. The critical care or intensive care physician may also communicate with the patient’s primary physician, other specialists, and the critical care staff to coordinate treatment and care.

Physicians in this specialty treat patients suffering from numerous diseases and illnesses, but some of the most common are trauma, cystic fibrosis, renal failure, liver failure, post-operative care, serious infections, acute lung injury, hemodynamic instability, hypoxic injury, reversible heart & lung dysfunction, multi-organ dysfunction, airway & respiratory compromise, cardiopulmonary failure, and circulatory failure.

Once properly diagnosed, practitioners can perform numerous procedures on patients including endotracheal tube, mechanical ventilation, tracheotomy, ecmo (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), establishing central venous access, adial arterial catheterization, and passage of pulmonary arterial balloon flotation catheters.

To diagnose patients with possible illnesses and diseases, specialists will often perform one of many tests including magnetic resonance imaging (mri), computed axial tomography (ct or cat scan), blood test, and pulmonary function tests (pfts).

Doctor density varies by specialty and location. Connecticut has 197 practicing critical care medicine doctors. Broken out by city, critical care medicine doctor density in Avon is 3, in Bloomfield is 6, in Branford is 2, in Bridgeport is 12, in Bristol is 3, in Brookfield is 3, in Cheshire is 1, in Colchester is 7, in Danbury is 12, in Dayville is 1, in Derby is 1, in East Hampton is 2, in East Hartford is 15, in East Haven is 1, in Enfield is 1, in Essex is 1, in Fairfield is 5, in Farmington is 13, in Glastonbury is 3, in Greenwich is 1, in Guilford is 2, in Hamden is 4, in Hartford is 31, in Lakeville is 1, in Madison is 5, in Manchester is 2, in Marlborough is 3, in Meriden is 3, in Middlebury is 1, in Middletown is 9, in Milford is 1, in Naugatuck is 1, in New Britain is 7, in New Canaan is 2, in New Haven is 43, in New London is 6, in New Milford is 1, in North Haven is 1, in Norwalk is 10, in Norwich is 12, in Old Saybrook is 3, in Portland is 1, in Prospect is 1, in Putnam is 7, in Rocky Hill is 4, in S Woodstock is 1, in Seymour is 1, in Sharon is 2, in Shelton is 3, in Simsbury is 1, in South Windsor is 1, in South Woodstock is 1, in Southbury is 2, in Southington is 3, in Southport is 3, in Stafford Springs is 1, in Stamford is 4, in Stratford is 1, in Torrington is 3, in Trumbull is 5, in Vernon is 3, in Vernon Rockville is 5, in Wallingford is 5, in Waterbury is 12, in West Hartford is 3, in West Haven is 4, in Wethersfield is 4, in Willimantic is 2, and in Woodbridge is 1.

This New England state is one of the original 13 states; Connecticut’s capital is Hartford and its population is 3,510,297. This state is steeped in history. Visit the past at the Nathan Hale Homestead near New London, or Yale University in New Haven. Tour the home of Mark Twain, the New England Air Museum, or the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk. Explore a historic tobacco farming area, do some hiking and biking, or visit the numerous antique shops or lighthouses in the eastern coastal area.

According to 2005 Census estimates, Connecticut has a population of 3,510,297. Of this population, 812,182 are under the age of 18 and 472,089 are at or above the age of 65.