Congratulations to Larry DeLuca, MD, assistant professor of emergency medicine and director, Infectious Disease Research Collaboration, who recently received board certification in internal medicine - critical care medicine.
Dr. DeLuca, a graduate of the emergency medicine residency program at the University of Arizona in 2008, completed a combined research and critical care fellowship at UA in 2010. The next step was to become board certified in critical care medicine, but at the time of his training, no EM fellows were allowed to sit for critical care board certification in the U.S. So like many EM critical care fellows, Dr. DeLuca went to Europe and received certification from the European Society for Intensive Care Medicine.
Since then the American Board of Emergency Medicine has developed a process with other boards to co-sponsor certification for emergency physicians to become critical care certified in the United States. Because of Dr. DeLuca’s fellowship training and experience practicing in ICUs for more than five years, he was able to sit for the IM-CCM board examination.
“It has been a long road, but worth it! To me, most important was the knowledge and experience I gained working and caring for patients in the intensive care setting,” said Dr. DeLuca. “Having the external validation that is widely recognized as a significant achievement in the U.S. is nice, too!”
Dr. DeLuca is now one of only a few emergency physicians in the country to have board certification in critical care medicine.
“I am very proud of Dr. DeLuca’s excellence and passion for critical care medicine and translational research,” said Samuel Keim, MD, professor and head of the UA Department of Emergency Medicine.