Neurocritical Care vs. Critical Care

[chessodoc]

Just curious - are neurocritical trained physicians hired to staff 'regular' critical care units. For example in ICUs which don't have a separate neuro-ICU service. Or are you pretty much limited to Neuro-ICU services if you do a NCC fellowship?

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[chessodoc]

bump

 

[typhoonegator]

You are "real" critical care. The folks at Pitt, for example, cover all of the ICUs when they're on-call.

 

[typhoonegator]

...but I've still never met anyone from NCC that is working regular shifts in the MICU or anything. Taking call is one thing, but assuming primary management roles for post-op liver transplants or AAA repairs or whatever is pretty far afield of what we have been trained in for the most part. I would hope that MICU and SICU staff would feel the same way about NCC issues, but in my experience that isn't always the case.

There are some old school neuroanesthesia/NCC people or similar who are grandfathered into NCC (i.e. never sat for NCC boards but are clearly experts). They can attend wherever they want in theory, but there are only a handful of these folks around.

 

[chessodoc]

I see. So when being hired you're basically limited to established NCC services.

 

[typhoonegator]

Usually, yes. Just as medicine services hire Pulm/CCM people to run their MICU, but don't typically expect those people to run a burn or trauma unit as well.

If you're asking whether getting NCC training will open up doors to staff the SICU on a regular basis, the answer is no. There are so many more of them than there are of us, anyway.