Can an emergency medicine resident become board certified in critical care medicine?
Currently there is no ABEM examination for emergency medicine physicians in critical care. At this time, there are a number of factors contributing to the lack of a board certification pathway. One hurdle is the small number of trained and practicing critical care physicians with an emergency medicine background. It is fiscally impractical to develop and administer a board examination for a handful of physicians. Many of us believe that as more emergency medicine physicians become formally trained in critical care though, that ultimately this situation will change. Another problem has been the historical background between emergency medicine and other inpatient specialties. Two good recent reviews of the development of emergency medicine and critical care medicine can be found in Academic Emergency Medicine in 2002 and 2005. However, significant progress has been made over the years. A recent jointly published white paper can be found both in the journal Critical Care Medicine and Anna