Multidisciplinary care of the obese patient with chronic critical illness after surgery.

The surgical patient with prolonged critical illness usually has a higher severity of illness on ICU admission, and is destined for greater morbidity, debilitation, and poorer hospital and long-term survival. Care of those with obesity is particularly difficult. Only with meticulous attention to detail and refined, dedicated, multidisciplinary processes of care, preferably assisted by protocolization, can these patients sustain any hope of recovery to acceptable functionality.