Pathways to critical care medicine - IM

[Organic Chemistry]

Hello,

I am aware that most critical care fellowships take residents from IM, EM, anesthesia and general surgery. I overheard that there is an hidden rule for critical care fellowships to reject applicants from the core 3 year IM program (i.e. they only take people who have already completed cardiology, respirology or GIM). Is it true? And if so, would a GIM or resp fellow be able to integrate critical care into their fellowship, so instead of doing 2 years GIM, they can do 1 year GIM/resp+2 years critical care medicine?

[MedicineLCS]

I mean I'm only an MS4 so curious what others say but this is public info, just Google name of fellow + CPSO in Ontario and see. In 3 minutes of googling, I found 3 fellows at two programs (the only ones I looked at) who were R3 IM to R4 Critical Care. 

[robclem21]

21 hours ago, Organic Chemistry said:

Hello,

I am aware that most critical care fellowships take residents from IM, EM, anesthesia and general surgery. I overheard that there is an hidden rule for critical care fellowships to reject applicants from the core 3 year IM program (i.e. they only take people who have already completed cardiology, respirology or GIM). Is it true? And if so, would a GIM or resp fellow be able to integrate critical care into their fellowship, so instead of doing 2 years GIM, they can do 1 year GIM/resp+2 years critical care medicine?

I don't believe this is accurate. 

[Edict]

On 3/2/2024 at 11:30 AM, Organic Chemistry said:

Hello,

I am aware that most critical care fellowships take residents from IM, EM, anesthesia and general surgery. I overheard that there is an hidden rule for critical care fellowships to reject applicants from the core 3 year IM program (i.e. they only take people who have already completed cardiology, respirology or GIM). Is it true? And if so, would a GIM or resp fellow be able to integrate critical care into their fellowship, so instead of doing 2 years GIM, they can do 1 year GIM/resp+2 years critical care medicine?

I don't think this is necessarily true, but to answer your question I do believe people are able to do resp and then critical care in 3 years instead of 2. It usually involves using elective time to fullfill the core requirements and its usually done in discussion with your program director. 

[Arztin]

On 3/2/2024 at 11:30 AM, Organic Chemistry said:

Hello,

I am aware that most critical care fellowships take residents from IM, EM, anesthesia and general surgery. I overheard that there is an hidden rule for critical care fellowships to reject applicants from the core 3 year IM program (i.e. they only take people who have already completed cardiology, respirology or GIM). Is it true? And if so, would a GIM or resp fellow be able to integrate critical care into their fellowship, so instead of doing 2 years GIM, they can do 1 year GIM/resp+2 years critical care medicine?

Perhaps program dependant? I've seen multiple ICU docs who have done 3 yrs of IM+ICU. They typically don't feel comfortable enough to do IM and hence only do ICU.

GIM and ICU integration in 3 years, yes it's possible. With the EPAs nowadays, I don't know how feasible it still is. Maybe someone chime in?

3 year resp+GIM doesn't exist anymore. I was told that You become a mediocre ICU doc and mediocre respirologist at the same time. You can always finish resp, and then do ICU after.

[Organic Chemistry]

I see, guess it must have just been a rumor then. Thank you all very much for your answers!

[TARS]

It depends on the school - UBC is relatively notorious for not accepting PGY3 IM applicants and perhaps that is where you heard it. There are anesthesia, cardiology, emerg staff applying - I can see why that is preferred over someone who has not even finished the full IM training. It has been many years since an IM PGY3 was accepted to UBC IIRC.