Question: hi my name is Megan and I am wondering how you help babies, adults and kids? How do you know how to help them.

Natalie Fowler answered on 18 Nov 2019:

I have trained as a Critical Care Scientist in all age groups. Each day, I cover adult, paediatric and neonatal (means pre-term babies) intensive care units and could get called to a patient on any of these wards at any times. A lot of the equipment we use does the same thing, but they tend to be different manufacturers that are specific to age group. So I have to be able to use three different breathing machines, they all have the same principles though. My masters degree taught me about choosing the right equipment and I have built on this with my experiences over the last 4 years. For example if an adult has had a cardiac arrest, I know that they will need help breathing, they will need to be cooled to preserve brain function they will need heart scans etc – I was taught all of this. I then know from my experience of previous patients that I will probably need to do an EEG (looks at electrical activity in the brain) to monitor their brain function because this is a common problem for these patients. It’s a mix of what we know works and what we have seen with other patients in a similar condition.