© James Austin 2004
Last updated 5 May 2007
There are two review journals, two speciality journals and four high-impact general medical journals I would commend to any intensivist. No, you don't need to subscribe to them all, or even read them all! But I would recommend subscribing to the two review journals, which provide two different ways of keeping up-to-date with relevant research; and I would guess that 90% of the important papers in intensive care come out of the other six journals.
Current Opinion in Critical Care: up-to-date review articles, covering all the major areas of intensive care over a year (six issues). As with any review articles, you take what you get: some authors write more lucidly than others, and some topics are more relevant than others. But all-in-all I find myself coming back to my back issues again and again: studying for the Diploma, for teaching, and for clinical use.
Intensive Care Monitor: Instead of topic-by-topic, this thin journal reviews paper-by-paper. Each two-monthly issue picks about fifteen relevant papers from a wide range of journals scanned, lagging about six months behind original publication. In about a page the journal presents its own structured abstract, an evidence level ranking, a one-paragraph critique, and a 'bottom line'. Quite catchy are the little icons identifying 'bright ideas', 'level I papers', 'papers that could change practice' etc. I only discovered this journal just before the DICM exam, and wish I'd found it two years sooner! If you're a trainee member of the ICS, you can subscribe for half price (£30) using this form here.
Four general medical journals seem to get most of the high-impact ICU studies: New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and British Medical Journal (BMJ). Two specialist ICU journals seem to lead the pack: Critical Care Medicine (CCM - predominantly American) and Intensive Care Medicine (ICM - predominantly European). Other speciality journals include the Journal of Critical Care, Critical Care, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, and journals of other specialities that overlap with ICU (e.g. Chest, Anaesthesia, Journal of Trauma etc.).
Some journal websites are better than others. Some allow free full-text access to some or all of their articles (although you will usually have to register as a visitor). Some of the general journals have specialist collections for critical care. Most will offer to email you their table of contents (TOC) for each issue, which will usually contain links to their abstracts - this can be a handy way of scanning the journals without the discipline of visiting the medical library each week. So here's a quick overview of the six main journals the well-read intensivist should scan.
Journal |
Free full-text access |
Critical care collection |
TOC by email |
| NEJM | Yes, from 1993 to 6 months ago (original articles only) |
Yes - index here | Yes - sign-up here |
| Lancet | Yes, to selected articles | No - try Search for e.g. "Critical Care" |
Yes - sign-up here |
| JAMA | Yes, from 1998 to 6 months ago | Yes - index here | Yes - sign-up here |
| BMJ | Yes, to all content from 1994 - but see the new BMJ policy here |
Yes - Adult ICU or Paediatric ICU |
Yes - sign-up here Can customise |
| CCM | No | N/A | Yes - register with LWW-Online first, then go to eAlert at CCM |
| ICM | No | N/A | Yes - sign-up here (on the homepage) |
JICS is the Journal of the Intensive Care Society, and if you are writing the DICM you might consider joining the ICS as well. JICS is fast evolving into a formidable publication, mixing newsy items with original papers and reviews. For the exam candidate it is worth watching for at least two reasons: firstly, it sometimes contains articles or news about the DICM itself; and secondly, each issue usually contains reviews or critiques of two or three recent 'hot topic' papers from the intensive care literature. Back issues can be downloaded free, even by non-members, from the website.