This book seeks to empower healthcare providers to make comprehensively informed decisions in collaboration with their patients (and their families), leading to improved outcomes and satisfaction for all involved.
The book’s uniqueness lies in its comprehensive coverage of shared decision-making (SDM), integrating cognitive science to understand how information is processed and communicated effectively. It provides practical, hands-on examples through clinical vignettes that are rarely found in other resources. This integration bridges the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application, making it an outstanding resource in the field.
The volume is structured to guide readers through the entire SDM process. It begins with definitions and significance, moves through the roles of cognitive science and language, and addresses team and patient impacts as well as specific decisional challenges. Each section builds upon the previous one, creating a cohesive and logical progression of topics. This structured approach ensures that readers can easily follow and apply the concepts in their practice.
The primary aim of the book is to enhance the quality of patient care by promoting effective SDM practices. The objectives include educating healthcare providers on the principles and importance of SDM, providing practical tools and techniques for implementing SDM, addressing cultural and legal aspects to ensure inclusivity and compliance, and offering strategies for handling difficult situations with empathy and ethical consideration.
Thus, the main audience for this book includes physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, and other health care professionals caring for patients in an intensive care unit. Additionally, it is a valuable resource for medical educators and students who are learning about patient-centered care and decision-making processes.

Katerina Rusinova, MD, PhD, is the head of the Department of Palliative Medicine at the 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, and General University Hospital in Prague, Czechia. She co-founded the first academic department of palliative medicine in the Czech Republic (2021) and is a member of the Editorial Board of Intensive Care Medicine, where she also served as social media ditor from 2013 to 2018. Dr. Rusinova is the founder and editor-in-chief of Paliativni Medicina, the official journal of the Czech Society of Palliative Medicine, and she co-chaired the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) guidelines on end-of-life care in the ICU, published in 2024.
Her clinical and educational work focuses on palliative care. She serves as Course Director for the newly established Communication and Basic Palliative Care Skills course at Charles University. Her research includes the EPIC trial, which focuses on enhancing palliative care in the ICU (supported by the EU Horizon program, 2023-2027), and participating in an ERASMUS+ project aimed at improving physician-patient communication using virtual reality (2023-2025). She has also worked on the DECAREL project, which investigates decision-making at the end of life, supported by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (2018-2021).
Andrej Michalsen, MD, MPH, received his medical training at the medical schools of Kiel, Freiburg and Tübingen universities as well as at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, TX, U.S.A., and he has worked at the academic hospitals of Mainz, Germany, and Utrecht, the Netherlands. He is currently working as a consultant in Anaesthesiology and Critical Care at Konstanz Hospital, Germany.
Amongst others, he is a member of the Section on Ethics of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (which he chaired from 2013 until 2016), a member of the Ethics Section of the German Interdisciplinary Association of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, and a member of the International Health Committee of the American Thoracic Society. He has published and lectured extensively in the field of clinical ethics, his main areas of interest particularly comprising end-of-life care, appropriateness of care and prioritization in health care delivery. 
Dr. Michalsen has co-edited three volumes on clinical ethics – the latest being “Ethics in Intensive Care Medicine”, co-edited by Andrej Michalsen, Nichoals Sadovnikoff, and Jozef Kesecioglu in 2023 – all with SPRINGER publishers.
He has co-directed the ESICM e-learning class “Ethics and end-of-life care” since 2019 and has recently been appointed section editor for “Ethics” for the Journal of Critical Care (editor-in-chief: Jan Bakker, MD, PhD).