Are graduated intensivists prepared for practice? A case study from The Netherlands

Purpose An evaluation of the alignment between intensive care medicine (ICM) training and practice provides valuable information for the development of ICM training. Therefore this study examines how well recently licensed intensivists feel prepared for practice and whether intensivists from different background specialties attain comparable preparedness rates. Methods An inventory was developed to cover the tasks that constitute ICM practice. Two hundred five recently licensed Dutch intensivists received a questionnaire in which they could indicate how well their ICM training programme prepared them for these tasks on a 5-point Likert scale. Results Ninety-one respondents returned the questionnaire (response 45%). Respondents felt excellently prepared for 67 tasks, well prepared for 16 tasks, marginally sufficiently prepared for 6 tasks and insufficiently prepared for 15 tasks. Intensivists from anaesthesiology felt better prepared for IC specific activities (mean 4.25, SD 0.38) than those from internal medicine (mean 4.01, SD 0.40, P =.02).Average scores on tasks related to medical expertise were relatively high while tasks relating to management and leadership, science and professional development scored lower. Conclusions Although recently licensed intensivists are well prepared for most tasks in ICM, lower preparedness scores on tasks related to leadership and management, science, and professional development call for re-evaluation of the current curriculum.