Critical care - an all-encompassing specialty

Critical care - an all-encompassing specialty. N Engl J Med, Aug 2013; 369:669-670.

Finfer, S. and Vincent J-L.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1304035?af=R&rss=currentIssue

The August 29 issue of the NEJM will include the first in a series of review articles on critical care. Critical care is a young specialty that is generally considered to have developed from the successful use of invasive ventilation during the 1952 polio epidemic in Copenhagen. From these beginnings, critical care has spread to most countries in the world. In many developed societies, the number of critical care beds is increasing while total number of acute care hospital beds is decreasing; the proportion of acute care hospital beds that are intensive care unit beds is increasing substantially.