Intensive care and the different meanings of vulnerability.

Abstract

In the eyes of laypeople, intensive care may seem like a precise and objective field of study. Even to health professionals, believing that medical practice within intensive care units (ICUs) should be predominantly guided by technical decisions seems sensible and reasonable, even though there are nuances and some space for subjectivity. However, a careful look at particularities of the decision-making process in intensive care shows how different concepts and values, sometimes implicitly adopted, affect the ways intensivists think and, consequently, act. This article discusses a concept that largely intersects with the work processes in intensive care but remains poorly discussed: vulnerability.