Cardiothoracic surgical critical care medicine (CT-CCM) is a medical discipline centered on the perioperative care of diverse groups of patients. With an aging demographic and an increase in burden of chronic diseases the utilization of cardiothoracic surgical critical care units is likely to escalate in the coming decades. Given these projections, it is important to assess the state of cardiothoracic surgical intensive care, to develop goals and objectives for the future, and to identify knowledge gaps in need of scientific inquiry. This two-part review concentrates on CT-CCM as its own subspeciality of critical care and cardiothoracic surgery and provides aspirational goals for its practitioners and scientists. In part one, a list of guiding principles and a call-to-action agenda geared towards growth and promotion of CT-CCM are offered. In part two, an evaluation of selected scientific data is performed, identifying gaps in CT-CCM knowledge, and recommending direction to future scientific endeavors.
Keywords: ECMO; ERAS; acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery; anesthesiology; cardiothoracic surgery; delirium; ethics; intensive care medicine; lung transplantation; spinal cord protection; thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm; transfusion medicine.