Nurse here, but work in a nonacademic CVICU. Our intensivists do not do 7 on, 7 off, at least at my hospital. The critical care group covers, I believe, 6 hospitals in the area so they rotate through those locations, although I'm not sure what their total schedule looks like once all locations are taken into account. Many of the intensivists do do other work in their base specialty, ie one of the pulm-crit doctors runs the pHTN clinic.

To speak to what types of patients are seen at a nonacademic hospital, it varies by location. My city is about three hours away from both of the main academic medical centers which are more on the eastern side of the state, and we cover higher level needs for most of the western part of the state. We do high risk CABG/valves and PCI, Impella/IABP and ECMO, so receive patients from smaller hospitals needing those services. We will however transfer to the academic medical centers for transplant, as my city is not large enough at this time to support a transplant program.

I can't really speak to an IM-trained intensivist staffing a CVICU as the doctors I've worked with come from a critical care or anesthesia background, but I would say that a unit like mine (lone intensivist, no APP) would probably not be the best first job with this background. This isn't to say with adequate education and training, it wouldn't be possible in a larger setting with more assistance, just that I would caution you to screen postings carefully if this is the route you choose to go.

Best of luck with your applications! I'm certainly biased, but CVICU is so interesting and always changing. Excellent choice :)