Login to myESAIC Membership
Back

About

The ESAIC is dedicated to supporting professionals in anaesthesiology and intensive care by serving as the hub for development and dissemination of valuable educational, scientific, research, and networking resources.


Back

Congresses

The ESAIC hosts the Euroanaesthesia and Focus Meeting congresses that serve as platforms for cutting-edge science and innovation in the field. These events bring together experts, foster networking, and facilitate knowledge exchange in anaesthesiology, intensive care, pain management, and perioperative medicine. Euroanaesthesia is one of the world’s largest and most influential scientific congresses for anaesthesia professionals. Held annually throughout Europe, our congress is a contemporary event geared towards education, knowledge exchange and innovation in anaesthesia, intensive care, pain and perioperative medicine, as well as a platform for immense international visibility for scientific research.


Back

Professional Growth

The ESAIC's mission is to foster and provide exceptional training and educational opportunities. The ESAIC ensures the provision of robust and standardised examination and certification systems to support the professional development of anaesthesiologists and to ensure outstanding future doctors in the field of anaesthesiology and intensive care.


Back

Research

The ESAIC aims to advance patient outcomes and contribute to the progress of anaesthesiology and intensive care evidence-based practice through research. The ESAIC Clinical Trial Network (CTN), the Academic Contract Research Organisation (A-CRO), the Research Groups and Grants all contribute to the knowledge and clinical advances in the peri-operative setting.


Learn more about the ESAIC Clinical Trial Network (CTN) and the associated studies.

Back

EU Projects

The ESAIC is actively involved as a consortium member in numerous EU funded projects. Together with healthcare leaders and practitioners, the ESAIC's involvement as an EU project partner is another way that it is improving patient outcomes and ensuring the best care for every patient.


Back

Patient Safety

The ESAIC aims to promote the professional role of anaesthesiologists and intensive care physicians and enhance perioperative patient outcomes by focusing on quality of care and patient safety strategies. The Society is committed to implementing the Helsinki Declaration and leading patient safety projects.


Back

Sustainability

To ESAIC is committed to implementing the Glasgow Declaration and drive initiatives towards greater environmental sustainability across anaesthesiology and intensive care in Europe.


Back

Partnerships

The ESAIC works in collaboration with industry, national societies, and specialist societies to promote advancements in anaesthesia and intensive care. The Industry Partnership offers visibility and engagement opportunities for industry participants with ESAIC members, facilitating understanding of specific needs in anaesthesiology and in intensive care. This partnership provides resources for education and avenues for collaborative projects enhancing science, education, and patient safety. The Specialist Societies contribute to high-quality educational opportunities for European anaesthesiologists and intensivists, fostering discussion and sharing, while the National Societies, through NASC, maintain standards, promote events and courses, and facilitate connections. All partnerships collectively drive dialogue, learning, and growth in the anaesthesiology and intensive care sector.


Back

Guidelines

Guidelines play a crucial role in delivering evidence-based recommendations to healthcare professionals. Within the fields of anaesthesia and intensive care, guidelines are instrumental in standardizing clinical practices and enhancing patient outcomes. For many years, the ESAIC has served as a pivotal platform for facilitating continuous advancements, improving care standards and harmonising clinical management practices across Europe.


Back

Publications

With over 40 years of publication history, the EJA (European Journal of Anaesthesiology) has established itself as a highly respected and influential journal in its field. It covers a wide range of topics related to anaesthesiology and intensive care medicine, including perioperative medicine, pain management, critical care, resuscitation, and patient safety.


Back

Membership

Becoming a member of ESAIC implies becoming a part of a vibrant community of nearly 8,000 professionals who exchange best practices and stay updated on the latest developments in anaesthesiology, intensive care and perioperative medicine. ESAIC membership equips you with the tools and resources necessary to enhance your daily professional routine, nurture your career growth, and play an active role in advancing anaesthesiology, intensive care and perioperative medicine.


Membership opportunities
at the ESAIC

Congress Newsletter 2022

ESAIC Honorary Member – Prof. Wolfgang Buhre

Prof Wolfgang B

Our fourth Honorary Member this year is Prof Wolfgang Buhre, Professor of Anesthesiology, University of Maastricht; and Chair, Division of Anesthesiology, Perioperative Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Critical Care (CAKZ), Maastricht University Medical Centre, The Netherlands.

Q: Congratulations on your Honorary Membership Wolfgang. It must feel nice to join the long list of distinguished colleagues who have been given this honour?

A: Absolutely, it is a really an honour to be part of a group of colleagues contributing to the society and our speciality. Indeed, I was surprised when I got the information.

Q: Take us back to when you first started out as a trainee anaesthetist. What attracted you to the speciality? Who were some of your key mentors?

A: I started research in Anaesthesiology in my second year of medical studies, so quite early. I initially was interested in emergency medicine and physiology of the trauma patient. For whatever reason, I had to fortune to meet the late Prof Andreas Hoeft, at that time, who was a second-year resident and so it all started. My mentors in residency are role models of clinicians – physiologists, mainly from the Göttingen group, like Andreas Hoeft and Dietrich Kettler, but also colleagues from Switzerland like Edith Schmid. Cor Kalkman from Utrecht was my mentor in the field of outcome research and clinical trials. Within the ESAIC family, I always listened to Stef de Hert and Paolo Pelosi (both past presidents of the society) – their advice has always been important to me.

Q: Your training saw you spend time in Germany and Switzerland. How important is it for anaesthesiologists to train in different locations like this, including through programmes such as ESAIC’s Trainee Exchange Programme?

A:  I advise colleagues to spend some time abroad when possible. Even a short period of a month or some days allows gives you a different view into how we are working and studying. So, working in a different health system or even culture contributes to a deep understanding which really helps us to work together in the future. Moreover, a lot of big studies can only be performed in a multi-national, multi-centric approach, therefore teambuilding is one of the cornerstones and that is what we learn during trainee exchange programs.

Q: What are some of your most important research projects from your career?

A: Well, this is a very difficult question. I always find the most recent the most important! However, basically, I started my research in the field of cardiac anaesthesia and physiology and in small populations of high-risk patients. However, after a couple of years, my interest in outcome research and in the prediction of patient-relevant outcomes increased substantially, so we created a team of colleagues involved in that area. In recent years I am interested in multicentric, sometimes. multinational studies like the TRACE study which deals with the Anaesthesiologist as part of the perioperative care team.

Q: And what studies are you involved in today?

A: As a clinical trialist, I am involved in two major outcome trials in the Netherlands, TRACE 1/Trace2, studying patient-related factors and the effects of prolonged duration of waiting for surgery on the outcome. Within AMAZONE, we are looking at psychological interventions to reduce the incidence of chronic postoperative pain syndromes in women undergoing breast cancer therapy. The latter is quite relevant as postoperative pain syndromes after surgery form a major health care issue. The DESIGNATION group as a spin-off of Pro Vent is now working on the optimisation of ventilation modes, a still-relevant topic. I am also interested in advanced monitoring, in particular on the normal ward, and just recently two major research projects (STARS and WearIT4Health), now we are analysing the results and then we will decide about the next steps in patient-centred monitoring.

Q: Mentoring is now a big part of your role, and indeed you run the EASIC mentor-mentee programme. How is this going, and how easy is it to match mentors with mentees?

A: Yes, indeed, mentoring is one of the most beautiful tasks for both mentee and mentor. I am happy that we now have a solid body of mentors and an enthusiastic group of mentees, the individual match is working better and better over the years. We try to keep the program relatively small, allowing us to stay in contact with the group.

Q: And what are some of your goals for the next period of your career?

A: Well, I expect to work for almost 12 years. Basically, there are three main goals: 1. Support the widespread establishment of integrated academic divisions combing anaesthesia, intensive care medicine and emergency care. My task will be to use my experience in this field to support other colleagues. Support the development of the next generations. In the upcoming years there will be real competition to stay attractive for our young colleagues, I will contribute to creating an environment where our colleagues can grow and take over. Recently, I started to set up a group on sustainability, with different green teams. Climate change is one of the biggest challenges and therefore we need to direct our research partly in this direction.

Thanks, Wolfgang and warmest congratulations on your Honorary membership.

Read More of our special newsletter covering our congress.