title: The intensive care unit. The unfolding ambiguities of survival therapy.
abstract: The intensive care unit (ICU), one of the great achievements of modern medicine, is both a set of technologies and a space with a special function. This essay traces the evolution of the ICU's crucial technologies, and how the space bearing this name was carved out in the hospital. Ethical, legal, and social developments, an important part of this story, are incorporated in it.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Reiser
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000266:history / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends*; D018579:Patient Selection; D040841:Resource Allocation; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical; D035501:Uncertainty; D014481:United States; D028761:Withholding Treatment