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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.

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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.


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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.


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Sustainability

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


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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Newsletter 2021

Newsletter September 2021: What makes us good (and indispensable)?

Gabriel M. Gurman, MD
Chief Editor
gurman@bgu.ac.il

This time I did not need to go searching in the literature, because what I do know, and write here, comes from tens of years spent in the operating room and near the critically ill patient.

Not long ago I touched on this subject, but I have the feeling that there is more to say on this subject.

Anaesthesiology is one of the youngest specialities in medicine. It is true, the first known ether anaesthesia was performed almost two centuries ago, but the domain of anaesthesiology became relevant only after World War II, both in Europe and North America. The scientific side of the profession came even later, when research started to be done in the main medical centres all over the world, and the number of scientific journals dedicated to anaesthesia and critical care increased each year.

This means that our tradition is based on what, in the beginning, we learned from one another and all from our own mistakes.

But little by little we transformed our speciality into a normal one, with well-established departments and units, modern technology and drugs, like any other medical field.

This was a hard way to take. As one of the profession pioneers wrote more than half a century ago: once upon a time anaesthesiologists were essentially technicians, appearing in the operating room in the morning, anaesthetising patients without seeing them beforehand, and not seeing them again after the operation, and leaving the hospital as soon as the operative schedule was completed”.

But today the situation is completely different, and there are some characteristics that contribute to differentiating us from other medical specialities.

First of all, we learned to cope with being part of a team. It means that very often we are not the “violin number 1”, we are left behind as the surgeon, who brings the patient to the operating table, is well known by his/her family, and keeps the control in his/her own hands. But we learned to behave like backstage directors of a show, being responsible for almost everything which happens “on the scene”, but not getting the applause of “the public”. This is the art of cooperation, and we are good at it.

We are not “the sleeping partner” anymore in the operating room. We learned how to use modern equipment in order to provide better anaesthesia (like using the ultrasound machine for loco-regional techniques), but also help the surgeon to reach a proper decision by offering him/her important data on the patient’s situation (see the echocardiography performed by us during cardiac surgery).

Secondly, we learned how to stay clinicians and not to lose human contact with our patients. Once upon a time, we have been seen as to be a half- a- sleep doctor near a – half-aware patient.

But, gradually, we succeeded in dividing our daily activity between the operating room and the outside fields of activity: critical care, pain, labour room, resuscitation, administration, education and research. As of today, some 35-40% of our activity is spent outside the operating theatre.

The modern organisation system of medicine, in particular surgery, created a new field, that of same-day surgery, thus obliging us to see our patient (if at all!) minutes before being brought on the operating table. But very soon we found the solution to this problem, which could have led to a complete leak of communication with the surgical patient. The outpatient anaesthesia clinics invite the patient to meet his/her future anaesthesiologist days and weeks before the time is supposed to be in the operating room. The outpatient clinic gives us the chance not only to better know our patient, but also to improve his/her medical status, by performing more lab tests and asking for the expertise of other specialists, cardiologists, pneumologists, haematologists, etc.

Finally, it proved all over the world that we are good organizers, and in many hospitals, the anaesthesiologist is in charge of the operating theatre activity.

I am proposing you a test: think of a completely unrealistic situation in which, one day, there would be no anaesthesiologists available for covering all the tasks of this speciality. You could be sure that at that very moment all the clinical activities of that medical institution would stop!

I cannot finish this without mentioning what my former Canadian director, Dr Arthur Scott (who passed away three years ago) told me many years ago: You know what we are? A DOCTOR first, and then an ANAESTHETIST.

 

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