News and newsletters

Throughout the history of medicine, sepsis has consistently challenged caregivers. The discovery of antibiotics brought significant advances in treating sepsis, but germ theory did not fully explain the pathogenesis of sepsis: many patients with sepsis still died even if antibiotic treatment had successfully killed off the pathogen that caused it. Now we understand that the dysregulated response of the host, not the germ, drives the pathogenesis of sepsis. (1) In 2016, the Sepsis-3 Task Force on Sepsis defined sepsis as a life-threatening organ dysfunction arising from a dysregulated host response to infection. This shifted clinical and research […]

The peripartum period carries the risk of rapid deterioration into severe maternal morbidity (SMM), contributing to adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Causes are diverse and may arise in the antepartum, intrapartum, or postpartum period, occurring across both prehospital and in-hospital settings. (1)(2)(3) Although rare, these life-threatening events demand standardised multidisciplinary approaches to diagnosis, resuscitation, and treatment, anaesthesiologists occupying a central role in leading […]

Modern perioperative care aims to use targeted regional anaesthesia (RA) techniques within multimodal, opioid-sparing analgesic strategies to improve functional recovery by optimising pain control while prioritising early mobilisation, reducing hospital length of stay (LOS), and improving quality of life. This approach is especially relevant for trauma, orthopaedic, and abdominal surgeries, where postoperative pain can delay rehabilitation, increase opioid-related side effects, and contribute to persistent postsurgical pain (PPSP).   Evidence-based […]

Postoperative monitoring is typically intermittent, with observation gaps of 4–6 hours depending on patient risk, potentially delaying recognition of deterioration and compromising rescue opportunities. (1) A substantial proportion of postoperative in-hospital deaths occur on general wards (2), and although postoperative complications affect approximately 13–20% of patients, mortality is often not solely because of the complication itself, but because of a failure to recognise and […]

Situation awareness, patient safety and the next visual layer in patient monitoring The question behind the technology At Euroanaesthesia, the most interesting ideas are not always the ones that sound most futuristic on stage. They are the ones that follow us back into the operating room on Monday morning. One such idea is deceptively simple: […]

In modern healthcare, change is occurring at an accelerated rate. Systemic and cultural pressures are forcing healthcare practitioners to adapt at the cost of their health and wellbeing. Financial recession and COVID both highlighted vital factors that underpin the human capacity to find balance during systemic change. These events demanded that healthcare reflect on what is truly important, questioning what it might take to survive but also to conceive what it might take to thrive.   Physician burnout and job satisfaction have become […]

Euroanaesthesia opens each year with the Sir Macintosh and Prof. Ibsen lectures, celebrating the legacy of these two pioneers in anaesthesiology and intensive care. These sessions are an opportunity to honour professionals for their outstanding contributions and highlight their importance in the medical community. To officially kick off the Euroanaesthesia conference,  ESAIC is excited to welcome Prof. Stephanie Klein Nagelvoort-Schuit, of the University […]

Alongside the Sir Robert Macintosh Lecture, the Prof. Ibsen Lecture honours foundational figures in anaesthesiology and intensive care medicine. Many consider Bjørn Aage Ibsen (1915–2007) to be the founder of modern intensive care medicine. In 1952, a bad polio epidemic broke out in Copenhagen and in a short time, reached crisis proportions. Between July and December 1952, over 2,722 patients were admitted with polio. 866 had paralysis, including 316 patients with respiratory or/and pharyngeal paralysis, and […]

The world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is moving fast. It seems like it was only a short time ago that healthcare was dreaming about the possibilities of how AI and Machine Learning (ML) could support clinical practice. Physicians dreamed of being relieved of the administrative burdens of clinical practice and having more time for human connection with patients. They saw opportunities to perfect diagnosis and the delivery of treatment. This was especially true for anaesthesiologists.  The dream of an […]