Prof Ibsen Lecture - Learning from crisis: shaping the future with clinical and scientific leadership 

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 mortality rate was 87%. With only negative pressure ventilation available and the mortality rate increasing, Prof. Ibsen saw an opportunity to use continuous positive pressure ventilation (PPV) via intubation, a technique regularly used in operating theatres, and revolutionised the management of acute respiratory failure. Ibsen’s techniques radically reduced mortality rates. (1) He proposed that the expertise and equipment of polio ICUs could treat patients with other serious respiratory conditions such as tetanus, barbiturate intoxication, drowning, myasthenia gravis, crushed chests, head injuries, shock, or cardiac arrest.(2) In the midst of such an intense crisis, Prof. Ibsen created a life-saving technique, a strategy for acute care within a hospital ward, and a new medical discipline: intensive care medicine. This epitomises leadership in a time of crisis. 

Prof. Maurizio Cecconi will give this year’s Prof. Ibsen lecture, “Learning from crisis: shaping the future with clinical and scientific leadership.” He is uniquely qualified to speak on this topic. He was President of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) from 2020 to 2022 throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, President Sergio Mattarella awarded Prof. Cecconi the Knight of the Order of the Merit of the Italian Republic for his service “to the community during the coronavirus emergency”. During the same year, JAMA named Prof. Cecconi as one of the most influential doctors of the COVID-19 pandemic. (3)  

When the COVID-19 outbreak erupted in Lombardy, and the demand for ICU beds quickly exceeded availability, Prof. Cecconi was working at the Humanitas Clinical and Research Centre (IRCCS), Rozzano, Milan, Italy. (4) The newly formed COVID-19 Lombardy ICU emergency network quickly mobilised a regional ICU network to handle the surge of SARS-CoV-2 patients while forecasting resource requirements in real time. Prof. Cecconi initiated opportunities to warn colleagues in countries still unaffected by the spread and helped to disseminate vital information across clinician networks worldwide to update them about the virus, how to control its spread, and how to treat infected patients. He emphasised the need to focus on training staff to handle highly contagious patients and to prioritise evidence-based treatment and supportive care, an act of both scientific leadership and crisis communication. (5) Under his leadership, ESICM began training 20,000 European health workers how to work in intensive care through the EU-funded C19_SPACE programme. ESICM established its reputation within European institutions and earned the Gastein Health Forum European Health Leadership Award in 2021. (6)  

Realising the need to learn crises and prepare for the future, he advocates the need to create a new pan-European approach to intensive care, creating a framework for the free movement of intensivists, focusing on a proper system to exchange crucial and life-saving data, and preparing for a new era of a much more important place for ICUs in hospitals outside of a crisis. He emphasises that any crisis should function as a catalyst for structural reform, not just in clinical protocols but in how healthcare systems are funded, staffed, and coordinated at a European level. (7) 

The keynote lecture “Learning from crisis: shaping the future with clinical and scientific leadership” will take place at the Euroanaesthesia Congress 2026 on Saturday, June 6 at 09:00–09:30 CEST in room DELTA A. 

References 

1. Intensive Care Committee of the French Society of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine (SFAR), Collange O, Mongardon N, et al. Invention of intensive care medicine by an anaesthesiologist: 70 years of progress from epidemics to resilience to exceptional healthcare crises. Anaesth Crit Care Pain Med. 2022;41(5):101115. doi:10.1016/j.accpm.2022.101115 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352556822000960?via%3Dihub  

2. Gilbertson AA. Before intensive therapy?. J R Soc Med. 1995;88(8):459P-463P. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1295304/  

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurizio_Cecconi  

4. Grasselli G, Pesenti A, Cecconi M. Critical Care Utilization for the COVID-19 Outbreak in Lombardy, Italy: Early Experience and Forecast During an Emergency Response. JAMA. 2020 Apr 28;323(16):1545-1546. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.4031. PMID: 32167538. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763188  

5. https://www.esicm.org/covid-19-icu-network/  

6. https://www.esicm.org/watch-esicm-president-interview-by-european-health-forum-gastein/ 

7. https://www.esicm.org/second-meeting-european-parliament-intensive-care-interest-group/