Results from a survey of intensive care training. How much that is learned applies to later practice

BACKGROUND: There is no doubt that good knowledge of intensive care medicine is necessary for any surgeon, since major surgery entails postoperative intensive care requiring the surgeon's involvement. Recent changes in the German surgical training program, demands for the board examination, and further specialisation have raised the question whether the time spent in ICU education is still adequate and covers topics for young surgeons attendant to their personal professional aims. The present survey was performed to elucidate this topic. METHODS: Questionnaires were sent to 300 randomly chosen surgical residents. RESULTS: Of the questionnaires, 44% were returned and eligible for analysis: 95% considered their ICU education important, 32% worked longer than the (required) 6 months on the ICU, and 62% thought the time spent on ICU was adequate, whereas 14.5% thought it too long. Most of these fellows (84%) worked in university hospitals of large medical centers. After their ICU rotation, the majority felt familiar with the basic procedures and regarded them important also for future work. More advanced techniques (e.g. specifics of artificial ventilation or invasive haemodynamic monitoring) were considered less relevant or not at all. CONCLUSION: The majority of fellows (95%) considered ICU training important, but 50% felt that advanced ICU techniques were not relevant to their planned future work as surgeons. Especially in university hospitals and large medical centers, there were discrepancies between proposed and actually served ICU time as well as between the training program and the methods and techniques the young surgeons felt important for the future. This information may be useful when discussing requirements of surgical education programs.