American College of Chest Physicians

Overview
The American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) is a medical organization consisting of physicians and non-physician specialists in the field of chest medicine, which includes pulmonology, thoracic surgery, and critical care medicine.

"Fellow of the College of Chest Physicians" (FCCP) is a title given to a doctor who specializes in pulmonology, thoracic surgery, and critical care medicine. FCCP is used as a post-nominal title, such as John Citizen, MD, FCCP. To be eligible for the Fellowship, a physician in the United States of America or Canada must be board certified in both a primary board and an applicable subspecialty board, have at least 18 months experience in the field, and be sponsored by two Fellows of the College. Non-physicians who do active work in chest medicine &mdash; including those with a Ph.D., Pharm.D., D.Sc., or a doctorally-prepared nurse &mdash; are also eligible for the fellowship. Physicians outside of the United States and Canada are also eligible for the Fellowship. International Fellows (also given the designation FCCP) must have three years' experience in their field after the completion of training.

Chest is a medical journal published by the ACCP.

Classes of Recommendations

 * Class I: Evidence and/or general agreement that a given diagnostic procedure or treatment is beneﬁcial, useful, and effective.


 * Class II: Conﬂicting evidence and/or a divergence of opinion about the usefulness or efﬁcacy of the treatment or procedure.


 * Class IIa: Weight of evidence or opinion is in favour of usefulness or efﬁcacy.


 * Class IIb: Usefulness or efﬁcacy is less well established by evidence or opinion.


 * Class III: Evidence or general agreement that the treatment or procedure is not useful or effective and, in some cases, may be harmful.

Level of Evidence

 * Level of Evidence: A Data derived from multiple randomized clinical trials or meta-analyses.


 * Level of Evidence: B Data derived from a single randomized clinical trial or large non-randomized studies.


 * Level of Evidence: C Consensus of opinion of the experts and/or small studies, retrospective studies, and registries.