WFSA make anaesthesiology more attractive
Dear Colleagues.
I am delighted to be writing to you, having taken over as WFSA President last month at the close of WCA2024.
Before sharing my vision and priorities for WFSA, I want to pay tribute to the outgoing Presidential team of Wayne Morriss and Adrian Gelb.
Together they steered our Federation through the challenges of the pandemic years and the immediate post-COVID period, including the preparations for our highly successful 18th World Congress of Anaesthesiologists. I am grateful to have served on the Board of WFSA alongside both of them, and with so many other wonderful colleagues.
I have had the pleasure of being involved with global anaesthesiology efforts for several decades, including as President of the European Society of Anaesthesiology & Intensive Care. I am proud to have been the first Romanian to receive the European Diploma of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care and to have contributed to the implementation of the European Curriculum of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care in my country.
As a cardiac anaesthesia and intensive care specialist, perioperative care, patient blood management and sepsis are particular areas of focus for me. I set up the first blood conservation programme in Bucharest in 2002 and developed the first patient blood management national guidelines in Romania in 2017. I am keen to highlight these areas during my term as WFSA President and am delighted that WFSA is developing a new training course on perioperative patient blood management. As a teacher formore than three decades, I acknowledge the huge transformative role of continuous professional development for the advancement of our specialty and I support increasing the WFSA educational offering.
I am also pleased to see our increasing focus on engaging early career anaesthesiologists, who will guide us towards new, innovative projects and pathways of collaboration. For me it is key that WFSA works with all of you to make anaesthesiology more attractive as a specialty and anaesthesiologists more visible beyond the operating room. As part of the team that developed the 2023-28 WFSA Strategy, this document sets out my priorities for our Federation and I urge you to make yourself familiar with this. You can find the document on our website in English, French and Spanish.
During the next couple of months, I will have the opportunity to visit several of our Member Societies’ conferences. I shall be attending the Hungarian congress in Siófok in early May, then my own society’s international conference in Sinaia, Romania in mid-May before traveling to Munich for Euroanaesthesia 2024 on 25-27 May. I hope to meet with many of you at these events. If you’re going to Euroanaesthesia this year, I hope you will attend our panel on Monday at 15.00-16.00 local time where colleagues will be presenting on ‘Your workforce shortage in context’. This will include numbers from WFSA’s latest global workforce study published in March in Anesthesia & Analgesia.
Whatever your plans are for the coming weeks – whether you are celebrating Nowruz, Easter, Passover or the end of Ramadan – I wish you a peaceful, relaxing and enjoyable time.
Best wishes
Professor Daniela Filipescu
WFSA President
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