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Milan, 6:00 am.
I check the patient, the blood gases, the drainages, the balance.
Everything is automatic.
I stop
I look outside
through a chink between the monitor and the infusions.
It is dawn.
Dawn in intensive care unit is a symbol,
a sign that things can change.
It is a shift that ends
for others it begins.
The light of dawn takes away darkness and pain,
the faces hidden behind masks.
Hope comes.
It is the awakening from sedation,
it is breathing again.
Dawn in intensive care unit is emotion.
They are the tired eyes of those who worked all night
for a patient who sometimes does not make it.
It is the weariness and sleeplessness
through the night for a family waiting for the news.
It is the sorrow when that family is yours.
People meet
hands touch
tears flow
phones ring
people run
while outside for a moment everything stops.
Milan, 6:10 am.
Dawn in intensive care unit is many things
it is up to us to choose which.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to our families, colleagues, patients and their relatives with whom we share the dawn every day.
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MS took the photograph, AG and MS wrote the poem.
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Stellabotte, M., Galazzi, A. Dawn in intensive care unit. Intensive Care Med 48, 381–382 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-021-06556-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-021-06556-2