Critical Care Medicine and Infectious Diseases: An Emerging Combined Subspecialty in the United States

Abstract

The recent rise in unfilled training positions among infectious diseases (ID) fellowship programs nationwide indicates that ID is declining as a career choice among internal medicine residency graduates. Supplementing ID training with training in critical care medicine (CCM) might be a way to regenerate interest in the specialty. Hands-on patient care and higher salaries are obvious attractions. High infection prevalence and antibiotic resistance in intensive care units, expanding immunosuppressed host populations, and public health crises such as the recent Ebola outbreak underscore the potential synergy of CCM-ID training. Most intensivists receive training in pulmonary medicine and only 1% of current board-certified intensivists are trained in ID. While still small, this cohort of CCM-ID certified physicians has continued to rise over the last 2 decades. ID and CCM program leadership nationwide must recognize these trends and the merits of the CCM-ID combination to facilitate creation of formal dual-training opportunities.

Keywords: critical care; fellowship; infectious disease.

Figure 1.

Distribution of American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) subspecialty (SS) certifications held by physicians newly certified in critical care medicine (CCM) (n=13 061*). *Counts represent 2014 point-prevalence estimates (courtesy ABIM); ˆSignificantly lower than one percentage.