Undergraduate education in critical care medicine

Objective: To review the current status and future needs of medical students with respect to education in critical care medicine. Data Sources: Literature review and questionnaire administered at the 1990 Educational and Scientific Symposium of the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Measurements and Main Results: Medical students are presently not required to master even the basic aspects of critical care medicine before licensing. The results of the questionnaire demonstrated that critical care medicine professionals believe a critical care core curriculum should be established and its completion should be made a requirement for graduation from medical school. A reference set of critical care medicine learning objectives and a strategy for their implementation are presented. Conclusions: There is a gap between what student physicians are required to learn and what they need to know to effectively initiate critical care interventions and to appropriately refer patients to ICUs. This gap can and should be remedied with wide implementation of a critical care core curriculum.