You are already stressed; doctors, nurses and orderlies parade in and out of the room; and no one seems to have time to explain what's happening. Top this off with every horror story you've ever heard about—the deadly mistakes and killer germs lurking around every corner, and you wonder how your loved one will survive his / her stay.

Martine Ehrenclou's book, Critical Conditions—The Essential Hospital Guide to Get Your Loved One Out Alive, is exactly what it says: a step-by-step guide on how you can be proactive in your loved one's recovery. Based on interviews with over 150 doctors, nurses, social workers and families, Ehrenclou describes in detail how to be an advocate for your loved one. She tells who you should talk to (only the primary nurse and the primary doctor), what to check for (for every medication to be administered, every procedure to be done—double check the patient's name and ask the purpose for the medication or the procedure) and how to get the best care possible (talk about your loved one to the staff—the more they see him / her as a beloved human being, the better the care will be).

Critical Conditions stresses the fact that doctors and nurses want the same thing you do. They care about their patients; they want them to get better. No one makes mistakes on purpose. There are too many patients to see in too short a time frame. Your goal, therefore, is "to support the best possible medical care for your loved one." You can assist them to help your loved one.

Critical Conditions covers every aspect of hospital care, from admission through discharge. The last sixty pages are designed for the reader to write down notes of everything that is happening: new medications, nurses' and doctors' names as the shifts change, questions for the primary doctors and phone numbers for reaching them, and so on. This book is an incredible resource. It is definitely one to keep handy, just in case.