The Influence of Critical Care Medicine on the Development of the Specialty of Emergency Medicine: A Historical Perspective

Abstract

Through their largely concurrent development, the specialties of emergency medicine and critical care medicine have exerted a great deal of influence on each other. In this article, the authors trace the commonalities that emergency medicine and critical care medicine have shared and report on the historical relationship between the two specialties. As issues between emergency medicine and critical care medicine continue to emerge, the authors hope to inform the current discussion by bringing to light the controversies and questions that have been debated in the past.