Unit description and Key Contacts
Bendigo ICU
- ICU + Coronary Care Unit: maximum capacity of 6 ‘packages’ 24/7 with 7 packages available Monday to Friday – that is, 6 ICU patients, or up to 12 HDU or CCU patients. An ICU patient is nursed 1:1, where HDU or CCU is 2:1 – being ventilated, on renal replacement therapy, and a variety of other indications will result in a patient being ICU rather than HDU, and generally you will have a mix of both
- CCU patients often occupy the same beds as ICU and share nursing staff, but are looked after by cardiology doctors. Clinical questions and management is by cardiology. You may be asked to do some simple things for these patients – e.g. cannulas, charting paracetamol etc.
UNIT STAFF MEMBERS – KEY CONTACTS
Consultants:
Senior Nurses:
Registrars:
Allied Health:
Consultants:
- Dr Jason Fletcher - Director
- Dr Cameron Knott - Deputy Director (Head of Clinical Governance)
- Dr Emma Broadfield (half time respiratory; medical lead for PICU development; runs the teaching courses with Jan Yeung (such as BASIC and Paeds BASIC)
- Dr Tim Chimunda (Supervisor of Training, head of research, runs Echuca Telehealth project)
- Dr Jan Yeung (runs the teaching courses with Emma; head of ICU communication and end-of-life care)
- Dr Vijay Palanswamy (starting 4th March 2019; will assist Emma in developing the Paediatric ICU)
- Dr Caleb Fisher (starting 3rd June)
- Dr Sanjay Porwal
- All the consultants are approachable, keen to teach and very supportive.
Senior Nurses:
- Darcy Bales is the head of the nursing
- Jenni Tuena is the clinical nurse consultant
- An Associate Nurse Unit Manager (ANUM), who works very closely with the consultant in running the unit and managing workloads and capacity, oversees each shift.
Registrars:
- There is a registrar on ICU at all times, day 8am-8pm and night 8pm-8am, outreach varies approx. 0800 – 1630, sometimes later until 6-8pm. About 90% of weekdays will have an outreach registrar rostered on when possible.
- Generally a total of six registrars are on the roster at any one time, and usually are a mix of ED, ICU, Anaesthetic and Physician trainees of varying seniority and ICU experience.
Allied Health:
- Small group of senior allied health staff who are worth getting to know early. The key ones are the physiotherapist (Elia Andrews), dietitian (Lauren Ballantyne), pharmacist (Mel) and social worker (Bec).