thumb|220px|ICU room An intensive care unit (ICU), critical care unit (CCU) or intensive treatment unit (ITU, popular in the UK) is a specialised department in a hospital that provides intensive care medicine. Many hospitals also have designated intensive care areas for certain specialities of medicine, as dictated by the needs and available resources of each hospital. The naming is not rigidly standardized. History In response to a polio epidemic (where many patients required constant ventilation and survelliance), Bjorn Ibsen established the first intensive care unit in Copenhagen in 1953. The first application of this idea in the US was pioneered by Dr. William Mosenthal, a surgeon at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. In the 1960s, the importance of cardiac arrhythmias as a source of morbidity and mortality in myocardial infarctions (Heart Attacks) was recognized. This l