This book brings together personal narratives from critical care medicine specialists around the world. Most of these physicians started in critical care at or before the exponential increase in technological modalities to reverse or sustain organ function, have seen patient care both ways, and have worked as many as 30 years or more at the bedside. The narratives are organized around such themes as: how and why these physicians entered the discipline of critical care; what was critical care like in the beginning; how they have experienced the flood of innovations in critical care; why...