Anaesthesia, pain, intensive care and emergency medicine - A.P.I.C.E. ; Proceedings of the 20th Postgraduate Course in Critical Care Medicine, Trieste, Italy - November 18-21, 2005

The main objective of modern medicine has been the acquisition of increased skills and highly specialised knowledge in the various disciplines. At the same time, there has been a progressive multidisciplinary and multi-professional interest in acute disease conditions that place the patient in potential or real life-threatening situations. The state of the art of intensive medicine comprises a wide range of sophisticated interventions and collaboration between different medical disciplines, both of which give the patient access to the most advanced forms of treatment that are currently available.