ICU and You · Superpuzzle Series · Number 50
Twenty clues · companion to Mind Map #33 and Aphorism #37
The crossword is a pretext. Twenty clues is not a syllabus and nobody learns intensive care from a grid. What a puzzle does well is hold your attention on a word for a few seconds longer than a list would, and put a fact beside it while you are looking.
So the clues are deliberately mixed. Some are practice points you should already know and may not have thought about lately. Some are pieces of physiology. Some are history — a person, a case, a year — because knowing where a thing came from makes it stick. One or two are simply odd, and those are in here on purpose: curiosity is the thing that makes the rest of it go in.
Several clues teach rather than test: you will see the answer immediately and learn something getting there. That is the intention, not a failure of construction.
There is a printable version if you would rather work that way, and a challenge at the foot of the page.
Twenty clues from the fortnight. One of them is a first-aid measure you may not have been taught, one is a piece of anatomy that turned out to be wrong, and one is a household object nobody thinks to lock away.
On a phone, scroll the grid sideways. Arrow keys move; typing a letter moves you on; backspace steps back.
Finish it, or get as far as you get — partial sets are welcome and are how I find out which clue was unfair.
The button opens a reply straight to me with your grid filled in. If your device blocks it, write to icuandyou@icloud.com instead.