Cardiothoracic Critical Care as Subspecialty and Its Core Competencies

This study will use the Delphi process to conduct this study. This survey research involves Phase 1 and Phase 2 of questioning, each phase involves up to 3 rounds of questions to determine agreement or disagreement. Each round will take approximately 20 minutes to complete, and responses will remain completely confidential. For both phases, the questions will either be 7-point Likert or multiple choices. For both phases, the group of questions will be sent up to three times until agreement (up to 80% of agreement consensus). Questions that have obtained agreement will be removed in each round. The questions will help the experts and the research team understand where there is current agreement on, or topic that may need to be discussed/studied further to unify trainings.

Inclusion criteria

• The participants will be experts in the field of Cardiothoracic Surgery Critical Care Medicine to better understand the training needs of the field. Experts must have been in practice for a minimum of 5 years and have at least 50% of practice in cardiothoracic intensive care units.
• The participants will have graduated from a critical care fellowship in either an administration, education, or research role.

Exclusion criteria

• Participants who do not meet the exclusion criteria will be excluded due to their lack of experience in the field.