Opportunities in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine for Dual-trained Medicine and Pediatric Physicians

Combined internal medicine-pediatrics (med-peds) training has been recognized as a unique, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited residency pathway since 1967, resulting in more than 10,000 graduates. Med-peds graduates have the option of pursuing combined med-peds fellowships with a 1-year reduction in training time compared with pursuing such fellowships separately. The typical med-peds resident spends 8-9 months in the intensive care unit during residency, with additional rotations in pulmonary medicine; not surprisingly, residents are increasingly inquiring about combined med-peds fellowship training within the fields of pulmonary and critical care medicine. In this review, we outline both the advantages and challenges of such training and present various pathways and considerations to achieve board certification.