Emergency Medicine Critical Care Certification: Challenges Ahead

Imoigele P. Aisiku*, Peter C. Hou and Raghu R. Seethala

Emergency Medicine Critical Care Certification: Challenges Ahead.

Since the early 2000’s a number of landmark developments occurred.
The LEAPFROG group’s report of intensive care physicians managing and leading
care in Intensive Care Units should be considered standard of practice and
that there is a current and projected shortage of physicians capable of meeting the critical care demands.

A definition for the term intensivist was also offered, which included physician’s
board-certified in emergency medicine who have completed a critical care fellowship.

That leads us to our current status. Emergency Medicine can sit for the boards, not just
one, but all of the major boards with IM being the first to grant access.

It is worthwhile to note the historical relatively low number of EM grads
who have trained in IM/CCM above. While this was widely received positively
it left the majority of practitioners and trainees without the ability for board certification.

This was later eased when Anesthesia and Surgery also created a certification pathway.

However, not all paths are equal. American Board of Internal Medicine
and American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) are co-sponsored boards with Ameri- can Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) and therefore are managed through EM but exam and criteria are set by ABIM and
ABA respectively.

The American Board of Surgery (ABS) pathway is managed through ABS and has separate criteria.
In essence all three pathways require different training paths.

It is possible to have multiple programs existing in the same institution with different processes.
Timeline are illustrated in Table 1. The pathway summaries are identified separately

Emerg Med Open J. 2015; 1(4): e1-e4. doi: 10.17140/EMOJ-1-e001

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