A Nationwide Survey of Critical Care Training in India

The 3-year training in the critical care medicine (CCM) specialty is a relatively new recognized program in India. This program has been run at a few premier institutes across India over the past few years.

The present study aimed to get a critical appraisal of the 3-year training program in CCM from the initial 50 trained Indian intensivists, regarding their research, publications, and self-perceived clinical training adequacy in the various areas of the CCM.

This was a prospective cross-sectional study. The list of participants (initial trainees who completed the course between 2015-2021) was compiled by contacting the respective teachers of the institutes that were permitted and recognized by the competent national authority to run a 3-year training course in CCM in India. A questionnaire was developed with questions related to demographic details; self-reports about clinical training program adequacy measured on the Likert scale; and their research area, publications, and current job profiles. After receipt of institutional ethics committee approval, responses from the participants were collected through Google Forms, which were sent through e-mails.

Responses were received from 51 of 62 participants. Among the 51, the majority were male (43; 84%), and their basic training was in anesthesiology (88%). All of them had conducted at least one mandatory research project; three-fourths were prospective observational. The main areas of research projects were cardiovascular (20%), followed by respiratory (18%), sepsis and infection (18%), and renal (14%). Only less than one-third reported being published in any PubMed-indexed journal, with most as a first authorship (93%). One-fourth to one-third of participants reported inadequate training in areas such as extracorporeal therapies and financial and administrative managerial skills in critical care, followed by cardiac and neurocritical care and research methodology. Eight (16%) underwent further training, including 6 from outside India.

The present study critically evaluated the 3-year training in the CCM from the perspective of trainees who completed the program in India; highlighting areas of inadequate training such as extracorporeal therapies and financial and administrative managerial skills. Participants reported concern about the training and allocated time for their research and getting it published in an indexed journal.