What They Do
An intensivist is a physician who specializes in the care of critically ill patients, typically within an intensive care unit. Intensivists coordinate and manage the complex, closely monitored care that critically ill patients require, often overseeing multiple organ systems at once when a patient's condition is severe.
What They Treat
Intensivists manage patients experiencing life-threatening conditions or significant organ dysfunction, such as severe infections, respiratory failure, or the aftermath of major surgery or trauma. Because critical illness often affects multiple organ systems simultaneously, intensivists take a broad, coordinated approach, working closely alongside other specialists relevant to each patient's specific condition.
Training Path
Becoming an intensivist typically requires completing a medical degree, followed by residency training in a related base specialty, such as internal medicine, anesthesiology, surgery, or pulmonology, and then additional specialized fellowship training specifically in critical care medicine, covering the management of severely ill patients across many different organ systems at once.
When Patients Interact With One
Patients typically come under the care of an intensivist when their condition is severe enough to require intensive care unit admission, whether due to a serious illness, major surgery, trauma, or another life-threatening circumstance. Families of critically ill patients often interact closely with the intensivist team, given how central this role is to coordinating care during a critical illness.
Background
Critical care medicine developed as a distinct medical specialty over the second half of the 20th century, growing alongside the development of intensive care units themselves and the specialized equipment used to support failing organ systems, including mechanical ventilation and advanced monitoring technology. The field has continued to evolve considerably as medical understanding of how to manage complex, multi-system critical illness has advanced.