Critical patients are all the symptoms they present, with one or more organs and/or systems affected and who are or could be in danger of their lives, but who also have a certain probability of recovery. They are either medical or surgical patients displaying functional failure of one or more organs and who require their substitution by artificial means that are often highly specialised and complex.

Technological advances and constant innovation make it necessary to constantly update technology related to specific treatment and cures derived from and linked to the illness and the treatment from which they derive, guaranteeing continual safety by preventing possible risks, offering the necessary treatment and addressing all other needs related to the patients and their families.

To ensure that the professional is able to keep their knowledge up to date they need training, with basic training equivalent to a nursing diploma, which offers professional competence, it is necessary to continue training in order to gain competencies in specific areas of the profession.

The School of Nursing at the Santa Creu i Sant Pau Hospital, part of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, has offered a postgraduate diploma in Intensive Nursing since 1981-82 and therefore has 28 years' experience of training nurses to care for patients with critical illnesses - a course that also offers proven expertise and tradition within the area of specific training.

This academic year, the postgraduate diploma in Intensive Nursing is becoming a Master's degree in Intensive Nursing, which corresponds to training in the area of critical patient care and follows our line of offering the best to students so that they in turn can offer the best to the patients.

Degree in nursing.

The integration of general and specific competencies enables student to:

- carry out their professional activity within the care unit for serious illnesses in the critical patient area(general intensive care, coronary, cardiac, postop and semicritical).

- carry out professional activities with critically ill children, as long as the professional has paediatric knowledge (intensive care and premature wards).

- carry out professional activity in situations of emergencies and hemodialysis.

- carry out professional activities in critical situation in all units of the hospital.

- form part of care teams for acute critical patients with multi-organ failure as a result of medical or surgical pathologies.

- lead consultancies for hospital and home nursing offering integral care for chronically ill patients with specific treatments (mechanical ventilators, health education, treatment and curing of wounds, pain and medication management, adaptation of the home on leaving hospital).

• Info
• Phone: 935537778
• E-mail: seui@santpau.cat
• Web: http://www.santpau.cat/eui