Critical Care

A popular, practical and easy-to-use guide, Oxford Desk Reference: Critical Care second edition distils evidence, therapeutics, and a growing knowledge base in to one single resource. Using their expertise, the Editors have devised an invaluable clinical guide reflecting best practice and training pathways ensuring all key information is covered. Each topic is laid out in a concise entry allowing rapid access to information.

The second edition includes new chapters on tissue perfusion monitoring, paediatric and maternal critical care as well as expanded coverage of cardiovascular monitoring, myocardial infarction and respiratory therapy techniques. New self-assessment questions support FFICM and EDIC (European Diploma of Intensive Care) revision as well as CME reflection. Covering the entire discipline in an easy-to-read format, this is the definitive clinical reference for critical care, ideal for trainees, consultants, advanced care practitioners, and nurses.

It is a definitive everyday reference for on the Intensive Care Units, High Dependency Units, acute medical or surgical wards, Accident and Emergency departments, and operating theatres.

Carl Waldmann, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, UK,Andrew Rhodes, Consultant and Professor in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK,Neil Soni, Formerly Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, UK,Jonathan Handy, Consultant Intensivist and Anaesthetist, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, UK

Carl Waldmann is Consultant in ICM and Anaesthesia at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading and Dean of the Faculty of Critical Care. Apart from his interests in the management of Head Injured patients in a DGH, the procurement and implementation of a Clinical Information System in ICU, his passion has been setting up and running an ICU follow-up clinic in Reading. From May 2007 to May 2009 he was President of the ICS, editor of Care of the Critically Ill and until 2004 the editor of JICS. Carl was also Chair of the section of Technology Assessment and Health Informatics [TAHI] of the ESICM until 2008. He was a member of the PACT editorial board of the ESICM and between 2015 and 2018 served as the Treasurer for the ESICM. Carl also has an interest in pre-hospital care and is club doctor for Leyton Orient FC.


Andrew Rhodes is a Consultant and Professor in Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthesia at the St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and St George's University of London. He has research interests in the fields of surgery, sepsis, haemodynamics and outcomes related to Peri-operative and Intensive Care Medicine. He is widely published in these areas and is regularly invited to lecture on these subjects all around the World. Andrew has held leadership roles at both a national and an international level. He is a Council member of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM) and a past president of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM). He is the current co-chair of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign.


Neil Soni was formerly a Consultant in Intensive Care and Anaesthesia at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. He trained in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care in Sydney, Australia, and was appointed as Senior Lecturer at Westminster Hospital in London in 1985.


Jonathan Handy is a Consultant Intensivist and Anaesthetist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and is Clinical Lead for North West London Critical Care Network (patient transfers). Qualifying from University College London Medical School in 1995, he continued his specialist training at Imperial College School of Anaesthesia. He is an editor of the journal Anaesthesia and has developed, taught and directed numerous educational courses including Medical Simulation. His research focuses on acid-base disturbances, lactate in critical illness, development and application of mathematical physiological models, critical care transfers and molecular physiology of critical illness.