ABP Pediatric Critical Care Medicine

Three years of full-time, broad-based fellowship in a pediatric critical care medicine program accredited by the ACGME in the United States or by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. You must also meet the ABP's general eligibility criteria for all pediatric subspecialties, have your program director verify training, competence including professionalism, and scholarly activity, and then pass the subspecialty certifying examination.

Part-time training may be completed over no more than six years. Absences or leaves exceeding three months during the three years, whether for vacation, parental leave, or illness, must be made up, and no continuous absence of more than one year is permitted. The ABP's Absences from Training policy covers waivers for parental, medical, and caregiver leave; training time is not waived for convenience, such as off-cycle starts.

The ABP requires its Credentials Committee to review requests for previous credit when a fellow has interrupted fellowship for more than 12 months. The stated rationale is the potential for significant changes in medicine over time. Practically, that means you should expect a documented review rather than automatic reinstatement of earlier training time, so plan your timeline early.

The ABP and the American Board of Anesthesiology offer a dual pathway, effective for those entering training in July 2013, conferring eligibility for both disciplines after five years. Separately, an ABA-certified anesthesiologist who entered PCCM fellowship by July 1, 2015 could apply with two years of PCCM training; that entry deadline has passed, so check current status with the boards.

Double counting of scholarly activity is allowed but clinical training may not be double counted: all clinical requirements of each discipline must be met. Six months of the scholarly activity required for PCCM certification is completed during the six months of research time allowed in the anesthesiology residency. Both trainings must occur at the same institution or within the same academic health system, with a five-year plan approved by both boards.

The final requirement is passing the subspecialty certifying examination, which the ABP administers through computer-based administration. This page does not publish item counts, timing, or fees; those details live on the ABP's subspecialty content outline and exam dates and fees pages, along with scheduling, test accommodation, and exam-day guidance. Confirm everything there before you apply, since criteria are subject to change without notice.

Difficulty is individual, and no pass rate is stated on the admission requirements page. The ABP does publish exam pass rates and scoring information separately, so use those published figures rather than secondhand estimates. The realistic preparation signal is breadth: the exam spans ventilation, hemodynamics, sepsis, neurocritical care, trauma, metabolic and renal problems, procedures, and ethics, so narrow preparation is the common vulnerability.

This page addresses eligibility rather than repeat attempts. The ABP maintains separate Exam FAQs, scoring, score reporting, and scheduling and rescheduling pages, plus a computer-based administration policy, that govern rescheduling, scoring questions, and further attempts. Read those before assuming a timeline, and note that certification criteria and conditions are subject to change without notice.

Yes, as currently published. The ABP announced that some training programs can soon petition the ABP to offer a two-year pathway for individual fellows, but that announcement gives no effective date, and the Pediatric Critical Care Medicine admission requirements page still states that three years of fellowship training are required. Confirm your own situation directly with the ABP before altering training plans.

Start with the domains you staff least often, then interleave rather than block: alternate ventilation and hemodynamics with sepsis, neurocritical care, trauma, renal and metabolic topics, procedures, and ethics. Common failure modes are reading one critical care textbook cover to cover, skipping ethics and systems content as low yield, and never practicing board-style items under timed conditions with structured review of every miss.