The Department of Critical Care Medicine was established in 2010 growing from an intensive care unit which had been established in 1990. The ICU at inception was designed to care for critically ill patients with life threatening conditions and multiorgan failure requiring comprehensive and constant monitoring often not possible in the regular wards. Faculty from the Department of Medicine would start rounds in the ICU and assess the sickest patients who had been admitted in the night. In the 90’s ICU was formally under the direction of Prof P Pais who would do rounds in the ICU in addition to his responsibilities as Prof of Medicine and Dean. The ICU was in the third floor of the hospital (present PICU) and had 10 beds. All 10 beds did not have ventilators and there were only a few pulse oximeters! There were no dialysis facilities and patients had to be shifted to dialysis room for urgent dialysis. There was a perennial shortage of ICU beds and ventilators and the addition of a separate Surgical ICU in the second floor did not address the shortage of beds.

The Silver Jubilee block was constructed in 2005 and a new 30 bedded ICU was designed in the second floor of this new block. The SICU and MICU were amalgamated in the same floor. The ICU was strengthened by efforts of Drs Amiya Charaborty, Dr Deshikar who were the earliest intensivists in this new facility. Formal training programs were initiated and after a rigorous inspection the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine granted permission to start the IDCCM( Indian Diploma in Critical Care Medicine) program. The first students were Dr Krishna Raju and Dr Bhuvana Krishna. The ICU soon started more training programs like the ICU fellowships of Rajiv Gandhi University and FNB Critical Care. The ISCCM also granted permission to start the IFCCM( Indian Fellowship in Critical Care Medicine) course. A large number of intensivists have been trained in the ICU and are currently working in India and other countries as consultants. One of the aims of the Department is to train students who would go on to head units and propagate quality intensive care training in the country. It is very motivational for students in the ICU to know that the first IDCCM and IFCCM trainee of the ICU - Dr Bhuvana Krishna is currently the Professor & HOD of the department!

With the addition of more training courses the institution felt that a separate Department of Critical Care should be established. In 2011 the Department of Critical Care was established with Dr Sriram Sampath, Dr Deshikar and Dr Bhuvana Krishna as the faculty. The department applied and were granted permission to start the DM Critical Care program in 2013. This was one of the first medical colleges in India to offer the program.

We currently run a 40 bedded ICU with sophisticated equipment in the 1st and 2nd floor of the Silver Jubilee Block building. We provide round the clock evidence based and affordable care to our patients with our dedicated team of qualified intensivists, critical care nurses, physiotherapists, dieticians and medical social workers. It is also a centre of academic excellence with a prestigious DM Critical Care programme and active involvement in research with many publications in national and international journals to its name.