Message from the President

Theme. “Creative..”

Kaneyuki Kawamae
Department of Anesthesiology, Yamagata University Faculty of Medicine
Advanced Critical Care Center, Yamagata University Hospital

Be Creative.

Intensive care medicine has been developed as a medical specialty that treats patients transferred from various clinical departments in severe conditions and prevents further worsening of their condition. This specialty is based on clinical and basic medicines; covers diseases involving respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic, nervous, hepatorenal, and gastrointestinal systems as well as infectious diseases; and is practiced by multidisciplinary teams composed of various healthcare professionals. At present, COVID-19 is taking lives of many people, and the situation is even being referred to as World War III. Intensive care physicians across the world are fighting against COVID-19 to save lives of severely ill patients. Although the vaccination program has started, it takes time to achieve herd immunity. Care of COVID-19 patients poses a high risk for healthcare professionals, requiring knowledge about infectious disease management and safety control in addition to that about conventional clinical practices. Furthermore, some patients experience rapid worsening into a critical condition, and enormous efforts have been expended to treat such patients. The COVID-19 treatment now involves not only intensive care units but also medical institutions, administrative organizations, and the government. As with the previous meeting, I expect to see many reports on experiences with the COVID-19 treatment and evidence derived from verification of the experiences at the upcoming meeting as well.

In the last two years, many academic meetings were obligated to avoid on-site participation and were held online, as facilitated by the digital revolution. The digital revolution has woken us up to benefits of online meetings in which we can participate from our workplace or home without having to go to the venue. I think that meetings will be held in this style for a while. The online meeting, however, has limitations in terms of non-verbal communication. Any human being instinctively wants to communicate with others in person. This meeting will be also held online for the third time, and I am afraid that many people are feeling frustrated. For the upcoming meeting, I am planning programs that will satisfy not only your intellectual interest but also instinct.

Intensive care units are the last strongholds where severely ill patients from various clinical departments are admitted for treatment. Intensive care unit treatment is expected to save patients that can be saved and it is provided with a view to improving quality of life after discharge from the unit and hospital. To this end, we, intensive care physicians, should closely communicate with other departments, positively cooperate with the other healthcare professionals, and provide patient-centered care. The sphere surrounding ethics, basic research, education, and intensive care medicine has an unlimited number of fields and matters that should be considered to promote medical-related regulations, ethics, community programs, disaster responses, and research. In not only Japan but in countries across Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and Australia, healthcare professionals taking care of severely ill patients and the academia undertaking research and education are striving every day. I think that academic meetings should be held globally and elaborately.

This meeting is planned to be held in an on-site and on-demand hybrid style. Although future economic conditions in Japan and worldwide are uncertain, we are planning to hold the 49th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine at Sendai city, Miyagi, Japan. We are pleased to invite you to attend the meeting and present your creative research and activities in a creative manner, thereby satisfying both your intellectual interest and instinct. I would appreciate it if you schedule your attendance at the 3-day meeting starting on March 18, 2022.