To investigate the awareness of critical care medicine undergraduates, as well as to put forward constructive suggestions and countermeasures for improving the awareness of critical care medicine.

The questionnaire survey and stratified sampling method were used to investigate the awareness of critical care medicine among 250 undergraduates of Guangzhou Medical University from 2015 to 2019, it included student's basic information,professional cognition,improvement intention and methods.

96.0% of the students thought they should pay attention to critical care medicine learning, 71.6% of the students thought critical care medicine had a good development prospect and 40.8% of the students were interested in critical care medicine. The main reason for the interest were the challenge of critical care medicine and the sense of responsibility and accomplishment that being able to help critically ill patients in the future. However, only 9.2% of the students thought themselves to have a certain understanding of critical care medicine and only 7.2% of the students would consider applying for the Master degree of critical care medicine or becoming an intensivist. Only 10.0% of the students would consider attending standardized residents training of critical care medicine. Concerns about engaging in critical care medicine were, in descending order, high-intensive work, high mental stress, high technical and professional requirements, high risk, frequent medical disputes. In addition, 94.4% of students were willing to improve their understanding of the critical care medicine through various ways.

Clinical medical students' understanding, interest and vocational tendency to critical care medicine are needed to be improved. Experts of this subject need to actively realize and respond to students' actual situation and requirements, and to discuss teaching methods with medical colleges and teaching hospitals, as well as strengthening the education of critical care medicine for medical students.