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What happens to a coronavirus patient in intensive care?

The Institute for Clinical Anatomy and Cell Analysis of the Medical Faculty of Tübingen has produced a teaching video together with students. The video realistically shows the treatment of a patient infected with the coronavirus in the intensive care unit. The video is publicly accessible to all interested parties.

How are patients with a severe course of Covid-19 treated in intensive care units and how can medical students optimally prepare for this emergency? "The intimate reality of a complex intensive care treatment of Covid-19 patients is difficult to describe", says Professor Bernhard Hirt, Head of the Institute of Clinical Anatomy and Cell Analysis. In order to bring this treatment as close as possible to medical students, the University Hospital and the University of Tübingen have chosen a special approach.

With the help of a simulated patient, doctors, together with students of human medicine and intensive care staff, realistically recreated the treatment of a Covid-19 patient in a replica of a fully equipped intensive care unit in the training room of the Anatomical Institute. Sober and without special effects, the instructional video shows the intensive medical treatment of a young man who, three days after a positive corona test, increasingly suffers from shortness of breath. The realistic treatment of a Covid-19 patient is simulated. He is intubated, given the necessary accesses and receives an artificial oxygenation of the blood by means of an ECMO therapy. While the intensive care team, consisting of nurses, medical staff, physiotherapists and cardio technicians, professionally and meticulously takes care of the maintenance of the physical functions, the patient's lung function slowly recovers.

The video is used in lectures, but also serves to educate the public. "What the treatment of Covid patients in intensive care units actually looks like is difficult for many people to imagine. This is why these pictures are so valuable and impressive," explains Michael Schlotterer, Head of Nursing in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care. "Daily new infections, available intensive care beds, number of ventilators: The public is often only interested in these hard facts," says PD Dr. Helene Häberle, Senior Physician in charge of the intensive care unit. "Unfortunately, the performance of the individual and the great responsibility of the medical and nursing staff are sometimes lost sight of.”

The script was written by medical students together with intensive care physicians. The video was also directed by the students in cooperation with the anatomy staff.

The teaching video is publicly available on the YouTube channel of the Sectio Chirurgica and under the link: https://youtu.be/rPBol6pLBw4