Speciality status for intensive care medicine?

Intensive care medicine (ICM) originates in response to the polio epidemic in Copenhagen in 1952. Long-term mechanical ventilation was then introduced as a treatment, and a broad spectrum of additional intensive care became necessary. This successful experience stimulated others in various countries and specialities. Many pioneers in this early period were anaesthesiologists (such as Lassen and Ibsen in Denmark, Holmdahl in Sweden and Safar in the USA), but specialists in internal medicine and neurology were also involved (such as Mollaret in France and Dönhardt in Germany).