Washington, D.C. is home to 83 practicing critical care medicine doctors who have offices in 1 county and 13 zip codes, including zip codes 20010, 20037, 20007, 20017, 20060, 20032, 20001, 20020, 20016, 20422, 20040, 20015, and 20008.

According to 2005 Census estimates, Washington, D.C. has a population of 550,521, which gives it a specialist to resident ratio of 1 critical care medicine doctor for every 6,632 residents.

Description

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.

Diseases / Illnesses Treated

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.

Procedures Performed

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.

Tests Performed

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).