First, do no harm: less training ≠ quality care.
In an attempt to transform the health care system in the United States to improve upon the inadequacies and deficiencies of our current model, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Medicine created a collaborative partnership to spell out what aspects of our health care system need to be remodeled. They envisioned that "interprofessional collaboration and coordination would be the 'norm,'"(1) because no discipline functions in isolation of others, certainly not in our intensive care units. In this spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration, the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) and the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN)-physician and nursing societies, respectively, with combined memberships totaling more than 110 000 practicing critical care practitioners-have spoken with one voice in the editorial that follows about how and how not to address the shortage of critical care physicians. Because our critical care nurses work side by side with our intensivists, shouldn't they have a say in how intensivists are trained? The ACCP and AACN think so, and we agree. Richard S. Irwin, MD, Master FCCP Editor in Chief, CHEST.
Michael H
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Baumann
Steven Q
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Simpson
Mary
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Stahl
Suhail
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Raoof
Darcy D
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Marciniuk
David D
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Gutterman
D003422:Critical Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D020445:Hospitalists / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000458:organization & administration; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000193:education*; D019555:Physician-Nurse Relations; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D012955:Societies, Medical; D012956:Societies, Nursing; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce