A/Professor Sean Clarke
Sean Clarke is the inaugural holder of the RBC Chair in Cardiovascular Nursing Research at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto and University Health Network of the Toronto General Hospital Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. Prior to this, he served as Associate Director of the Centre for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2008 under its founder, Dr Linda Aiken, where he was involved in international research on hospital workforce trends, nurse staffing levels, work environment factors, patient outcomes and nurse occupational health. A co-investigator on over $10 million in funded projects, many of which have involved international collaborations, he has been principal investigator on grants from the National Institute of Nursing Research (National Institutes of Health), the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. His current program of research continues to focus on organizational aspects of the quality and safety of hospital care, especially in relation to the treatment of cardiovascular illness. He currently holds a two year grant from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to develop a tool measuring nurses’ abilities to identify medical and surgical patients in clinical crisis. He completed master and doctoral degrees in nursing at McGill University in Montreal and postdoctoral clinical and research training at the University of Pennsylvania. A fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, he holds a number of visiting appointments at universities internationally, is extensively involved in speaking, consultation and peer review, serves on numerous editorial boards and is a Deputy Editor for the leading health services research journal, Medical Care.
Dr Brian Kavanagh
 Dr. Kavanagh graduated from University College Dublin (Ireland) in 1985. Following residency in internal medicine in Dublin and in anesthesia (residence and fellowship) in Toronto, he trained in critical care medicine in Stanford. He returned to the Toronto General Hospital in 1994 and in 1999 moved to The Hospital for Sick Children where he is a clinician-scientist and holds the Dr. Geoffrey Barker Chair in Critical Care Medicine.
He is a professor of anesthesia, medicine and physiology, and in 2006 was appointed as chair of the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Toronto. His laboratory investigates molecular and physiological mechanisms of ventilator-induced lung injury and the mechanisms of action of CO2 on the lung, and is supported by two operating grants and a career award from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), and a program award from the Ontario Government.
Dr. Kavanagh regularly presents at international meetings and chairs the Organizing Committee for the Critical Care Canada Forum. He is on the editorial advisory boards of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine, and is an associate editor of Anesthesiology.
A/Professor Philip Moons
Philip Moons is associate professor in nursing science at the Center for Health Services and Nursing Research at the Catholic University Leuven, Belgium. He received his master’s Degree in nursing science from that University in 1995. He obtained his PhD in 2004. Philip Moons is mainly involved in outcome research in congenital heart disease, and developed and implemented the role of advanced practice nurse in the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program of the University Hospital of Leuven. For his work, Philip Moons received the Martha N. Hill New Investigators Award 2004 from the American Heart Association and the Atie Immink New Investigators Award 2008 from the European Society of Cardiology. He is a fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA), the European Society of Cardiology (NFESC) and the European Academy of Nursing Science (FEANS). Philip Moons has published more than 100 articles in international, peer-reviewed journals; and presented about 150 abstracts at national and international conferences.
Mandy Odell
Mandy Odell qualified as a general nurse in 1979 and has worked in critical care for 28 years. After completing clinical experience for over 20 years in intensive care, she became a Nurse Consultant in Critical Care in 2001. Her main focus of practice is in improving the care of critically ill patients on general wards through expert role modelling, education, support; as well as the facilitation and development of Critical Care Outreach and the Reading-Modified early warning score. She is also interested in the nurses’ role in detecting deterioration in hospitalised patients. A keen supporter of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses (BACCN), Mandy was the National Chair for three years and National Secretary between 2002 and 2007. Through the BACCN Mandy has been involved in the development of national critical care policy, such as Comprehensive Critical Care and the NCEPOD report. Currently Mandy is the first nonmedical member elected to the Council of the Intensive Care Society, representing nursing and allied health professional members. Mandy has been widely published and regularly speaks at conferences both in the UK and abroad. She is currently studying for a PhD in the detection and management of the deteriorating ward patient.
Professor Claudio Ronco
Claudio Ronco has been Director of the Department of Nephrology of St Bortolo Hospital, Vicenza, Italy since 2002. In 1982 he introduced to Italy the use of continuous hemofiltration and in 1986 he reported the first case series of neonates treated with arteriovenous hemofiltration. In 1985 he contributed to the introduction in Europe of high flux dialysis. He also established the danger of backfiltration by contaminated dialysis fluid. He has conducted clinical and experimental research in the kinetics of fluid and solute removal in peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis, the treatment of acute renal failure with intermittent and continuous therapies, renal replacement therapy in the neonate, studies on glomerular filtration and renal functional reserve in humans and renal physiology in pregnancy. He has co-authored 830 papers, 79 book chapters, 52 books, 7 monographs and he has delivered more than 550 lectures at international meetings. He is a council member of several scientific societies and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Artificial Organs, Blood Purification and Contributions to Nephrology. Professor Ronco has received numerous honours and awards, including in 2004 a lifetime achievement award, honorary membership of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, and the National Kidney Foundation International Medal of Excellence. Claudio Ronco graduated in medicine from the University of Padua, Italy, in 1976. In 1979, Professor Ronco was awarded a specialisation diploma in medical nephrology from the Postgraduate School of Internal Medicine of the University of Padua and in 1989, he was awarded a specialisation diploma in paediatric nephrology from the University of Naples. In 1999 and 2000 he was Director of the Renal Laboratory at the Renal Research Institute of New York and Professor of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Beth Israel Medical Center of New York. He has spent most of his life bridging the fields of nephrology and intensive care, becoming one of the principal architects of the discipline of critical care nephrology.
Professor Jim Russell
Jim Russell was until recently Chair of the Department of Medicine at St Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver (1993 – 2003) and is now a researcher and Professor of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. His current research interests are genetics and novel treatments of septic shock. In genomics studies, he has found significant relationships between genetic markers (single nucleotide polymorphisms) of protein C, IL-6, IL-10, and fibrinogen and increased risk of death. In contrast, genetic variants of key innate immune genes CD14, MBL, TLR-2 and TLR-1 were associated with increased risk of sepsis. Jim was Principal Investigator of a multicentre, randomised controlled trial of asopressin vs norepinephrine in septic shock (VASST). Overall, low dose vasopressin was comparable in efficacy and safety to norepinephrine in septic shock but potentially more effective than norepinephrine alone in less severe septic shock. Jim and his VASST team also discovered a novel interaction of vasopressin, corticosteroids and mortality of septic shock. Jim was born in Toronto and completed his undergraduate degree in Biology/Biochemistry at Princeton University (1971). He completed his MD (1971 – 1975) and residency in Internal Medicine (1975 – 1979) at the University of Toronto. He then completed a clinical and research fellowship in Critical Care Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (1979 – 1981). He began his career as Director of the Medical ICU at the Toronto General Hospital (1981 – 1982) and was recruited to launch a world class Critical Care Medicine division at St Paul’s Hospital and the University of British Columbia (UBC) (1982 – present).
Professor Wesley Ely Sponsored by 
E. Wesley Ely, MD, MPH is a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and he has a particular passion for care of older critically ill patients. He is the Associate Director of aging research for the VA Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research and Education Clinical Center (GRECC). Dr Ely graduated from Tulane University and earned his medical degree from Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana. His medicine residency and fellowship were at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, and he completed a fellowship in transplantation at Barnes-Jewish/Washington University in St. Louis, MO. He was an author of the ACCP/AARC clinical practice guidelines for weaning from the ventilator and for the upcoming revised version of the SCCM guidelines for Pain, Anxiety and Delirium. Dr Ely was one of the coordinating centre physicians for the Phase III PROWESS international trial of re-Activated Protein C (and subsequent open label investigations) for severe sepsis. He is currently the director of the Vanderbilt clinical trials coordinating center for studies related to delirium and sedation. Dr Ely is currently the principal investigator for a five year cohort investigation of cognitive impairment in ICU patients, with a focus on delirium and neuropsychological impairment in older survivors of critical illness and the long-term effects of sedative and analgesia medications. This cohort study is sponsored jointly by the NIH, American Federation for Respiratory Research and the Hartford Foundation. Dr Ely has written or co-authored more than 100 articles, book chapters and editorials.
Dr John Griffiths
John Griffiths is a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthetics and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer of the Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. Through his clinical work, he is familiar with many of the issues faced by survivors of intensive care and is passionate about the field of ICU follow-up and has clinical research experience in this area. A particular interest is the psychological outcome from ICU treatment and was lead author of a recently published seminal systematic review of PTSD in ICU survivors. John currently sits on the Steering Committee of the ‘Intensive Care Outcome Network’ – ‘ICON’ – study. ICON is a multicentre study of the long-term survival, psychological morbidity and health-related quality of life of patients discharged from ICUs in the UK. The ICON study has created a valuable UK database, currently holding the 24-month outcome data of over 1,000 ICU survivors. John is also the co-founder and lead of an innovative national UK intensive care follow-up network (‘i-canuk’, accessed at www.i-canuk.com) that has nearly 1,000 registered users from a variety of health professional backgrounds that include doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, dieticians, speech and language therapists and psychologists; and from a variety of countries – UK, Sweden, India, Norway, USA and Australia to name a few. One of the aims of i-canuk is to coordinate multi-centre ICU follow-up research, and it is currently facilitating a multi-centre, questionnaire based study of the long-term economic impact of critical illness.
Professor Berend Mets
Berend Mets is currently the Eric A. Walker Professor and Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at the Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Dr Mets received his medical degree from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa in 1980 and had anesthesiology training in both England and South Africa. He served his residency (1985-1988) as well as earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology (in 1992) at the University of Cape Town. Dr Mets has conducted research on the pharmacology of cardiopulmonary bypass, invasive cardiac monitoring, as well as the use of echocardiography in the perioperative period. Dr Mets currently studies leadership and management, with a special focus on academic anesthesia departments. Dr Mets is a Past President of the Society for Education in Anesthesia. He is the President Elect for the Society of Academic Anesthesia Associations and for the Association of Academic Anesthesiology Chairs. He was elected to the Association of University Anesthesiologists in 2000. Dr Mets has served as Section Editor for Current Opinion in Anesthesiology. Currently, he is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia and the Journal of Education in Perioperative Medicine, as well as Update in Anesthesia. Dr Mets has published 66 peer-reviewed articles, is the co-editor of the book Clinical Teaching and has authored 15 book chapters and over 80 articles and abstracts.
Professor Didier Payen de la Garanderie Sponsored by 
Didier Payen de la Garanderie is professor and Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care, chief investigator for clinical research and director of the Research Laboratory of Anesthesiology & Surgical Critical Care at Lariboisière University Hospital, in Paris University 7. He received his medical degree from the University of Nantes School of Medicine in 1982 and a Ph D thesis in 1988. He was assistant professor in medical intensive care at Henri Mondor University Hospital, Créteil, and in anesthesiology and intensive care at Lariboisière University Hospital, later serving as staff ansthesiologist, and interim chief of the Department of Emergency Medicine. Professor Payen de la Garanderie has been and is currently the principal or coinvestigator in a number of clinical trials regarding sepsis and/or activated protein C including: ADDRESS (2003– 2004) and ACCESS (2007–ongoing) and is the French principal investigator for the international PROWESS-SHOCK (2007-2010). He served as president of the National Critical Care Committee of the French Society of Anesthesiology and CCare (1998–99), as an expert at the French Agency for Drug Delivery and as treasurer of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (1997-2001). He was also in charge of the Interface Commission between the French Society of Anesthesiology & Surgical Critical Care and INSERM. He is a reviewer and/or serves on the editorial board for many scientific journals as AJRCCM, CCM, CCare, Annales Françaises d’Anesthésie-Réanimation, Chest , JAMA, and The Lancet and is the primary or coauthor of over 250 peer-reviewed journal articles.
Stephen Ramsden OBE
Stephen Ramsden is the Chief Executive, Luton & Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust 1998 to 2010. Previously he was the Chief Executive of Mount Vernon Hospital NHS Trust (1991-94) and Mount Vernon & Watford Hospitals NHS Trust (1994-98). A 34 year career in Health Services Management, always in acute hospitals, he has an interest in Transformational change, Quality & Service Improvement and the transformation of Patient Safety he has been a member of the National Patient Safety Forum since its inception in 2007. Stephen is a member of the Institute of Healthcare Management. He was awarded an honorary MBA by the University of Luton in August 2004 for services to the towns of Luton and Dunstable and awarded a OBE in January 2008 for Services to Healthcare. Appointed part time National Patient Safety First Campaign Director in March 2008 Stephen continued to chair the Campaign Team until its end in March 2010. He became an independent consultant in April 2010 continuing to promote the transformation of patient safety and its relation with the NHS Quality, Innovation,Productivity and Prevention agenda.
Dr Marius Terblanche
Marius Terblanche is an academic intensivist in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at Guy’s & St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSFT) in London. He furthermore coordinates critical care research for King’s Health Partners (KHP), a UK government funded Academic Health Sciences Centre comprising GSFT, King’s College London, King’s College Hospital and South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. He underwent undergraduate medical training at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa and postgraduate specialist intensive care and anaesthesia training in the United Kingdom. As part of his specialist training he completed a one year fellowship in critical care medicine at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, where he was mentored by Dr. Bill Sibbald and developed his interest in epidemiology and the potential use of statin therapy in severe infections. Dr Terblanche oversees a growing research portfolio focussing on main three areas: 1) critical care epidemiology and trial methodology; 2) the use of statins in sepsis; and 3) the statistical modeling of data obtained from large clinical datasets. He is a research clinician funded by KHP, is formally trained in epidemiology and is involved in a number of international research collaborations. He is also an Associate Researcher at ICNARC (United Kingdom Intensive Care National Audit & (Research Centre) where he is performing methodology research. |
