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Dear SIZ members,

Becoming president of a scientific society is something strange! You look behind and find out that, before yourself, this position was held by prestigious people whose names echoed worldwide! Compare to these personalities, I really feel insignificant…

Nevertheless, I am extremely honored being offered this position and I will do my best to deserve it!

It is obvious that the president could not ensure the smooth running of the society without the support of the board members. I have the privilege to work together with dedicated members: Kirsten Colpaert, Annick De Weerdt, Isabelle Michaud, Jan De Waele, Geert Meyfroidt, Thierry Sottiaux, Fabio Taccone, Alexander Wilmer and Xavier Wittebole. Whithout these people the task would be insurmountable. 

It is a common practice to start a new mandate by fixing objectives for the next twelve months. I will not derogate from this, but beside that, because a one year mandate is really short, I think it is critical to plan society’s actions an a multi-year way. Hence I intend to pursue past president action for increasing ICU visibility in the general population. In addition to this, I wish to focus on two themes. First, I would like to start a national critical care network for scientific research where the SIZ would be the central node. Belgium critical care landscape as indeed several advantages, among others: (i) it is broad (more than 100 ICUs) which theoretically allow gathering data for a large number of patients in a rather short period of time, (ii) ICU physicians have good knowledge and clinical skills and many of them have experience with research protocols. The second topic I wish to develop is the “culture of quality assurance”. It is very clear to me that – as healthcare professionals – we have to evaluate the quality of our clinical practices and therefore I think it is critical to put in place assessment methods. In my opinion, quality assurance is an issue that should be questioned by our society because at this level we can guarantee a peer-to-peer approach centered on the improvement of our practices without criticism or threat.

I realize that my goals are somewhat ambitious and that a 1-year mandate will most probably not make all of them possible. Nevertheless, I hope I will be able to initiate these projects that could further boost the dynamism of our society.

With kindest regards

Didier Ledoux

SIZ President