‘May you live in interesting times’ has a heavy degree of irony at present. However, It is my honour to write my first piece as fifth dean of the Faculty and following our historic public statement, made in conjunction with the RCoA, of plans to start work to develop a UK College of Intensive Care Medicine.
I work as an intensive care medicine consultant in Sheffield, and a recent Diplomates Day photo of four happy ICM specialty registrars from my region brought home to me why it is right to start this work now. All four of them identify as ‘intensivists’, but two are single ICM CCT specialty registrars, one is dual with respiratory medicine, and one is dual with anaesthesia. Intensive care medicine as a stand-alone medical specialty is maturing, and it is inevitable that we should look to a future as an independent college which directly represents the interests of an increasingly diverse group of fellows and members and of the patients we treat.