Critical care encompasses elements of emergency medicine, anaesthesia, intensive care, acute internal medicine, postsurgical care, trauma management, and retrieval. In metropolitan teaching hospitals these elements are often distinct, with individual specialists providing discrete services. This may not be possible in rural centres, where specialist numbers are smaller and recruitment and retention more difficult. Multidisciplinary integrated critical care, using existing resources, has developed in some rural centres as a more relevant approach in this setting. The concept of developing a specialty of integrated critical-care medicine is worthy of further exploration.
The full article is accessible to AMA members and paid subscribers. Login to read more or purchase a subscription now.
Please note: institutional and Research4Life access to the MJA is now provided through Wiley Online Library.
- 1. Rural and remote areas classification. Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health, 1996.
- 2. Hillman K. The changing role of acute-care hospitals. Med J Aust 1999; 170: 325-328.
- 3. Smith B. Small emergency departments: does size matter? Emerg Med (Fremantle) 2002; 14: 95-101.
- 4. Ieraci S. Small emergency departments: reappraising "critical mass". Emerg Med (Fremantle) 2002; 14: 12-13.
- 5. Wakeford PRC. Medicine in the bush: a consultant physician's view. Med J Aust 1999; 171: 623-624.
- 6. Wakerman J, Humphreys JS. Rural health: why it matters. Med J Aust 2002; 176: 457-458. <eMJA full text>
- 7. Anderson T, Hart GK. Review of intensive care resources and activity 2000/2001. Melbourne: Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society, December 2002.
- 8. Anderson T, Hart GK. Review of intensive care activity 1999/2000. Melbourne: Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society, December 2001.
- 9. Trunkey DD. An unacceptable concept. Ann Surg 1999; 229: 172-173.
- 10. Weil MH. The Society of Critical Care Medicine: its history and its destiny. Crit Care Med 1973; 1: 1-4.
- 11. Harrison GA, Hillman KM, Fulde GWO, Jacques TC. The need for undergraduate education in critical care. Results of a questionnaire to year 6 medical undergraduates, University of New South Wales, and recommendations on a curriculum in critical care. Anaesth Intensive Care 1999; 27: 53-58.
- 12. Gunn S, Grenvik A. Emergency medicine and critical care certification. Acad Emerg Med 2002; 9: 322-323.
- 13. Rivers EP, Nguyen HB, Huang DT, Donnino MW. Critical care and emergency medicine. Curr Opin Crit Care 2002; 8: 600-606.
- 14. Byth PL. From the President, Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society. Anaesth Intensive Care 1993; 21: 11-12.
- 15. Braithwaite J, Hindle D. Research and the acute-care hospital of the future. Med J Aust 1999; 170: 292-293. <eMJA full text>
- 16. NSW Government Action Plan. Intensive Care Service Plan – Adult Services. Sydney: NSW Health Department, July 2001.
- 17. Morgan G, Perkins G. Critical care medicine. BMJ 2002; 324: S17.
- 18. Soni N, Wyncoll D. Intensive care medicine comes of age. BMJ 1999; 319: 271-272.
- 19. Shelly MP. A&E/ICU interface: training in intensive care medicine. Emerg Med J 2001; 18: 330-332.
The authors would like to thank Professor Ken Hillman, Associate Professor Peter Reed and Dr Phil Hungerford for their suggestions and advice.
None identified.