The time-poor candidate should read "A Practical Approach to Cardiac Anaesthesia" by Hensley Martin and Gravlee. Specifically, these two chapters are gold:

• The Postcardiopulmonary Bypass Period: A Systems Approach (Ruesch and Levy)
• Postoperative Care of the Cardiac Surgical Patient (Woda and Michler)

UpToDate articles on the cardiac and non-cardiac complications of CABG are good summaries, and are a part of the essential reading for this topic.

With the above, one should be able to scrape through.

Oh's Intensive Care Manual has several chapters which are relevant to this topic:

• Chapter 23 (pp. 260)   Cardiac  pacing  and  implantable  cardioverter  defibrillators  by Aaisha  Opel  and  Oliver  R  Segal
• Chapter 26  (pp. 299) Intensive  care  after  cardiac  surgery by Raymond  F  Raper
• Chapter 102 (pp. 1053)  Heart  and  lung  transplantation by Peter  S  Macdonald  and  Paul  C  Jansz

In spite of the pedigree, the author has not found this resource to be useful in his preparation. However, the time-rich candidate should read through these chapters at least once, to be familiar with the content of the infamous blue boxes. Additionally, it is difficult to find a single source on heart and lung transplantation which would be an improvement on the Macdonald and Jans chapter.

Summaries and discussions of cardiothoracic ICU topics from Life in the Fast Lane are made available as a list of links in the Resources section.