So, now it is my pleasure to introduce you to my colleague and my friend and the next president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, Dr. Lauren Source. Let me tell you about her. Lauren is a Chicago lifer, raising her family in what's referred to as the Windy City. She's the associate director for nursing research and the senior scientist in the pediatric ICU at the Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago and faculty at Northwestern University at the Feinberg School of Medicine. She trained in pediatric critical, she is trained as a pediatric clinical nurse specialist at Loyola University. She followed by her master's degree and pediatric nurse practitioner certificate and her PhD from Rush University. Lauren, one of many contributions, but her key contribution to critical care has really been her leadership as an advanced practice registered nurse. Lauren has served SECM in so many capacities. In addition to her nine years on council, she chaired the SECM strategic planning committee, the finance committee, the Norma Shoemaker research grant committee, the 2015 Congress program planning committee. She was co-chair of the international scientific conference committee and served as vice president of the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies. She serves on numerous editorial boards, she edits the SECM critical connections, she's been funded in research to study post-intensive care syndrome, stress hydrocortisone in pediatric septic shock, positioning in pediatric ARDS, and the criteria for convening family conferences in the intensive care unit. She's a friend, a colleague, a sponsor, a mentor, a role model, not only for nurses and women, but for all of us involved in critical care. I am honored to welcome the 53rd president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, Dr. Lauren Sors. Come on out, Lauren. Thank you. Good luck. Well, thank you, Vinay, and I'd like to welcome you all to the 53rd annual Congress. As the 53rd president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, I may look like one person up here, but in reality, I'm here representing all of you. I couldn't be more honored or excited as, together, we take on a new year of achievements and challenges. It's that time of year where we measure how far we've come in terms of growth and look forward to how much more we can grow together. And you need both the mindset to grow and a way to measure that growth year after year. SCCM perfectly exemplifies that. But first, I'd like to share my growth journey into critical care with you. It came one Saturday morning while I was six years old. I was always intrigued with my older siblings. My brother was cutting paper with a razor blade for an art piece. He left me alone for a few minutes, so I started cutting paper with the razor blade. When he returned, of course, he got upset that I had stolen his razor, and he grabbed it out of my hands. So yes, of course, you know exactly what happened. I got a deep cut into my thumb. My brother warned me, shh, don't tell mom. And of course, mom, sleeping, overheard us and came to investigate. There she saw the bleeding, a lot of it. So off to the ER we went. As I was getting my thumb stitched, I noticed the nurse was very skilled and compassionate. She looked like the actress Nancy Walker from the old bounty commercials. You all may remember, you know, the quicker picker upper. I looked forward to my freshman year of college and my class, the psychology of personal growth. The professor was convinced that I wanted to be a nurse because I associated the glamour of being an actor with being a nurse. I could tell you that he was right, but that would be a lie. I never remember making the decision to be a nurse. I just grew up knowing that that's what I was going to do well before my ED experience. Early on, my eye was on learning and growing to become a nurse. Learning and growing, that is what we do as critical care professionals. The famous American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, has said, one can choose to go back towards safety or forward towards growth. Growth must be chosen again and again. Fear must be overcome again and again. Choose growth. Here at SCCM, we must grow in three essential areas. One, develop strategies for improved patient outcomes in low-resourced environments. Two, develop and grow humanitarian programs. And three, to increase research funding. Many of you have heard the quote, may you live in interesting times, thought to be from the ancient Chinese. Actually, it was originally said by an American politician, Frederick R. Coderre, in 1939. Regardless of who said it, interesting could mean challenging. I would say critical care can claim it as its own with a twist. May we live in interesting times of growth. That perfectly describes the past few years, as critical care has been thrust into the national and international spotlight. And COVID certainly made it the most interesting of times. But prior to the pandemic, the average person had no idea what critical care is, and other than the fact that they didn't want to land in an ED or in an ICU. That was then. Today, they now understand a little bit more about what we do and why it's important. But what about all of us? We spend our professional lives dedicated to the delivery of critical care. Whether it's providing care in a rig, transporting a critically ill patient, in the ER, in the OR, in the ICU, or on an acute care ward as the rapid response or co-team member, or in a war zone. We all recognize one thing. Critical care isn't a place, but rather laser focused specialized care. It's for the sickest of the sick and the most seriously injured, occurring in many different places and in many different ways. When you think about all these diverse places, it is nearly unthinkable that such exquisite care could possibly be delivered without the coordinated efforts of an entire multi-professional team. And just like you, every member has a unique story to tell. Why did I choose critical care? So how did I come here to be with you today as the president of SCCM? My career path was predictable, and it's starting while growing up in a family of seven children, and of course, the infamous razor blade. My parents are incredibly hard workers, role modeling my entire life that anything worth achieving takes hard work and dedication. Growing up with six siblings is already like being a part of a multi-professional team. There was the student-athlete, the social one, the funny one, the wild one, the serious one, the driven one, led by our parents. Me? I was the driven one, the one who burned the candle at both ends. And we all brought our strengths and skills together to grow and face challenges as a family. It was the most interesting and exciting of times growing up, taking one step forward at a time. I like to refer to being one of seven as thriving in chaos, controlled chaos. Someone always coming or going, bringing new friends to the dinner table, creating new games, innovating faster ways to get the house cleaning done. You get the idea. I also learned resilience, although as a child I did not know what it meant. But here's what I did know. When I didn't succeed at something, I was taught to pick myself up by my bootstraps and go back at it. It wasn't that failure wasn't allowed. It was about learning from what had happened and trying again. Not only were my parents instilling resilience in me, they were also cultivating a growth mindset. It was my first step forward, a life lesson that was crucial for achieving goals. So is it any surprise I found a home, a perfect fit in critical care? Who knew my parents were grooming a critical care professional? In 1988, I started working as a new grad in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, now known as Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. The country was hiring, there you go. The country was experiencing another nursing shortage, and so the ICU was hiring new grads. It definitely wasn't an easy place to work. Not because of the patients, but because there weren't enough of us. I was drawn to this specialty because it literally felt like home. Like most of us drawn to critical care, I was intrigued by watching physiology and pathophysiology in action, observing minute-to-minute changes on the monitor, the physical exam changes, the keeping busy with the numerous interventions, assessing and reassessing patient's response, all while also attending to the needs of the patient's family. After a couple of years in the ICU, I looked for more opportunities to contribute and grow. I began giving lectures at the hospital and then at conferences. This opened up a whole new world to me, meeting other professionals, establishing relationships and networking, and professional advancement. That meant a return to school for my master's degree, followed by a post-doctorate pediatric nurse practitioner certificate. And thanks to Dawn Battley, the PICU nursing director, and Dr. Tom Green, pediatric intensivist and department of pediatrics chairman, for creating new pediatric critical care nurse practitioner positions. I was at the right place at the right time as I completed my training and transitioned into one of the first two pediatric critical care nurse practitioners in our PICU. So now you know who to blame or who to thank for unleashing me on the world of critical care APPs. After I was hired, Tom Green called me to his office and said, in no uncertain terms, you will join the Society of Critical Care Medicine and you will go to the meeting. To this point, I was a member of some professional organizations, so I knew the importance of membership in a professional society. So in January 1988, I joined SCCM and I attended my first meeting. I was awestruck. No, not because I have to say that as president, but because it's true. I learned so much at that meeting that my head nearly exploded. It was a game changer for me because I realized that I had found a fantastic professional community of peers, colleagues, and resources, all dedicated to critical care. It was a number of years before I got involved in the society, eventually through the creative community, taking on leadership roles, resulting in my induction in the American College of Critical Care Medicine in 2006. I worked through the creative community on multiple committees over the years, and while volunteering for the Congress Program Planning Committee, I was appointed co-chair of the 2015 SCCM Congress with Greg Martin. I was elected to council and started my term. As a council member, I had the opportunity to learn and grow even more. More about our society, more about how it interacts nationally and internationally, and how truly important it is to critical care professionals. Now as president, I'm even more committed to furthering our growth, and I am happy to say that this is my 26th consecutive SCCM Congress. But growth doesn't happen in a vacuum. I've been fortunate to have so many mentors and influential people in my career. Drs. Zahava Noah, Martha Curley, Ruth Klinepel, Greg Martin, Vinay Nedkarni, are only a few. Each of them provided me with opportunities to learn more, to grow more, to do more, and to cultivate my growth mindset. It would be impossible to list all of their contributions and those of so many others to my career. In addition, we all meet some pretty great people along our professional paths who become our friends. These friends who share similar experiences are essential to how we manage and cope in our practice of critical care. We have all faced tremendously impactful cases, haven't we? That's when a moment with a colleague and friend can give us the support when we need it the most. But what about the other people who contribute to our growth? Family. The importance of family can never be stated enough, whether it's the family of our patient or your own personal family. I was lucky enough to meet my husband in 2002. His name is Rick, and we have two children, Jack and Julia. We also have an incredible dog who is key to putting a smile on my face, snuggling with me early in the morning, and during virtual meetings. It would be impossible to travel this journey as the SCCM president without their support. When it became apparent it would be my path and the time commitment to being the president and doing it well, I asked my family, prepare to tell them the reasons why this is so important. They just stopped me and said, yes, of course. Here with me today are my husband, Rick, Van Royen, our children, Jack and Julia, my parents, Frank and Helene Source, my sister and brother-in-law, Alice and Stephen Vial, and my very best friend and her husband, Peg and John Brosman. I am truly grateful for their presence here today, their ongoing support, and the support of so many who have contributed to my journey. Having mentors, colleagues, friends, family who gift us with unconditional support in our work in critical care cannot be thanked enough. Now that you know a little bit about me, what has our society been doing? And perhaps more importantly, how have you, our members, helped it grow over the past 52 years? As we move past the worst or most interesting part of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am pleased to report that the society continues to expand its reach. Our professional society is doing more than ever to improve the care of critically ill and injured patients worldwide. SCCM has grown steadily since 2000. We saw record highs in both membership and revenue despite the pandemic. For example, annual revenue, not including investment income, increased from $10 million in 2002 to $28 million last year. If we measure by net assets, in 2000, we had no substantive reserves. And today, we have over $50 million in net assets. Yeah, I think so, too. Membership in 2000 was around 8,000 people. And today, it's over 17,000. Looking through the diversity lens, SCCM is much more diverse now than ever before, no matter what measure you use. More diversely spread across the United States, more diverse globally, more diverse in professional, ethnicity, age, workplace setting, et cetera. Looking ahead, we will aggressively continue our efforts on the diversity front. For our journals, we now have three instead of one, meaning greater reach and more research published each year. The growth of our fundamentals training programs, along with other courses like ultrasound, ICU liberation, et cetera, for learning right in our own hospitals has expanded SCCM's reach. In the last five years alone, more than 50,000 clinicians have participated in these licensed courses, reaching more individuals in the United States and worldwide than we ever thought possible. We also connect with more clinicians through our communications channels, with over 1 million learners participating in our podcasts and webcasts last year alone. And we reach even more through our online courses and learn ICU resource library. And as Vinay noted earlier, we've dramatically increased the number of guidelines and other manuscripts SCCM produces. Collectively, we have done this all with a singular focus on our mission, improving patient outcomes each step of the way. No other critical care society comes near the scope and breadth of SCCM. But really, any measure you'd like to consider, SCCM has grown steadily over the past 52 years. With that said, we are living through a time of historic challenge and opportunity. The world faces ongoing economic, social, and geopolitical volatility. At the same time, we've entered into a new age of technology through artificial intelligence that may fundamentally transform productivity and patient care. However, the number of clinicians working in our ICUs has fallen as many frustrated and exhausted have left the field, resulting in an acute shortage of clinicians, increasing the vulnerability of our already fragile patients. Yet, I'm encouraged to know that in the US, there have been increases in the number of programs offering physician training in critical care medicine. In addition, there are expansions from nontraditional fellowship pathway specialties like cardiology, nephrology, and infectious diseases, which will help to increase the number of critical care physicians in the US. One area of growth are nurse practitioners and physician assistants, collectively known as APPs. Although their ranks continue to increase in the US, we cannot access the actual number due to the lack of available demographic data. So we can't know if we've reached our optimal target. Clinical nurses, those we rely most heavily on to be the eyes and the ears of our multi-professional teams, are being educated in increasing numbers. However, deployment to critical care settings remains a challenge. Regarding critical care pharmacists, considered an essential member of the ICU team, despite consistent growth in the US, the number of board-certified critical care pharmacists remains relatively low when considering the number of ICU beds. This is also true for respiratory therapists caused by those leaving the field or retiring early, coupled with a decline in enrollment in respiratory therapy programs nationally. Knowing more work is needed to bring more professionals to our team, we each have a responsibility to contribute to growth, development, learning, and collaborative environments. And speaking of growth and development, I'm proud of SCCM's firm commitment on that front. SCCM programs provide free membership to those in training and those presenting research abstracts here at the SCCM Annual Congress. The great news is that the number of trainees from all specialties entering the field is historically high. The challenge, finding ways to keep them engaged, productive, and fulfilled in their role as critical care professionals. And SCCM is doing all we can to make sure that goal is not only achievable, but sustainable. As many of you know, SCCM's traditional major activities, like education programs, were impacted by the pandemic. Yet, we have more great news. Just look around. We have begun to recover by the increased size and scope of this year's 53rd SCCM Congress. But even during the pandemic, the growth of newer programs, such as the Society's Research and Humanitarian Programs, flourished and continued to expand during this period of transition. Extramural funding alone for our research and quality activities totaled $4.5 million between 2021 and 2023. Additionally, the SCCM Council continues to invest in the major expansion of these endeavors. Not only have we increased direct funding for researchers, but our discovery program has also expanded into data science activities, including developing more critical care scientists, critical care data scientists specifically, publishing a standardized data dictionary to improve research, and using data science to solve critical care problems. As I mentioned earlier, SCCM is expanding its global reach. Thanks to the work of the Pediatric Sepsis Definitions Task Force, established under the direction of our former president, Dr. Jerry Zimmerman, during this Congress, you will hear more about their work based on the analysis of more than 3 million pediatric patient records from around the world. Data science. In recent years, our expansion into more global health activities has been a major focus. No longer just offering membership and education to colleagues around the world, last year we launched the $5 million AIRS project. It was designed to help our colleagues and their families get the best care they can get. The $5 million AIRS project, it was designed to build stable, sustainable oxygen infrastructure in low-resource hospitals, where much of our training programs proved ineffective. But why? Patients didn't have access to this simple life-saving therapy. This activity, launching in the Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, will continue over the next two years as we train engineering technicians and hospital clinicians to maintain and use these new resources effectively. Additionally, in 2023, we issued calls for volunteers to provide care for those sick and injured during the conflict in Israel and Palestinian territories based on the needs expressed by their ministries of health. I'm pleased to say that over 1,000 of you stepped forward and registered to assist when conditions on the ground are safe to do so. Our humanitarian activities were further strengthened as we worked closely with the Ukrainian Ministry of Health as SCCM provided much-needed training and handheld ultrasound equipment to clinicians in Ukraine. This will empower them to save lives and successfully move injured patients from the ICU to rehabilitation centers. Let's take a quick look at this recent SCCM Global Health Program. So the purpose of this course is specific for Ukrainians is to make sure that they have the highest quality education in critical care ultrasound for two group of individuals. The first group is the novice, somebody who never have any experience with critical care ultrasound. And after a two-day course, they will be able to serve in the hospital. To serve in the best capacity to their patients because they will be able to have a much better diagnostic reliability at the bedside. Today, in the first week of medical union, we have basically two courses. One is from fundamental critical care support. So basically, students here learn how to manage critically ill patients and having a little bit of a discussion. And another one is for ICU liberation. On this course, such students as physical therapists and physicians learn how to manage their patients while they're in ICU. Have to do early awakening and physical rehabilitation so that their patients can be healthier after they will be released from it. I'm a military doctor. So full escalation, I was in the Donbass region. Tidal volume, flow total. Every doctor here is a great doctor. But we have lack of time. We have lack of resources. So probably, we are not able to see small details, small pieces that we miss every day. What we do is we provide the education to the experts here so then they can teach other health care providers in the rest of the country. It can help in any situation, as I said, where you need to quickly assess whether or not someone is seriously ill, recognizing the critically ill patient early so they can intervene and keep worse complications from happening. I think also they'll learn that the patients, if we control pain, if we control delirium, be able to get out of the intensive care quicker, that their families will have less stress, and that the working as a team is ultimately important. Every part of the team, including the patient and their families, is equally as important and helps that patient move on and thereby helps the society heal. Wow. Wow. As I know, most of the volunteers and staff that participated are in the audience today. Let's give them a big round of applause. As you can see, SCCM has been here helping our colleagues everywhere and anywhere critical care is needed. But we are also looking ahead. We are choosing growth. In 2023, the SCCM Council stepped forward to update its global strategy. We have broadened the SCCM Fundamentals training programs and, through funding partners, provide free training to those in low-resourced areas, both in the United States and globally. And we continue to work to bring needed pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and equipment to ICUs in most need. Later this year, we will implement a new fee infrastructure for all SCCM programs based on your location, so those from more resource-limited nations can participate equitably in all SCCM activities. And here are some really exciting news. This year, we are launching a new program to reduce mortality from sepsis in low-resource settings. In this new endeavor, we will be working closely with clinicians in these areas who will be supported by SCCM, the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the Laerdal Foundation, the World Health Organization, and others. Our goal is to save 3.4 million lives over six years. Yes, this is an ambitious goal, but working together with our dedicated partners, I am sure we will achieve it. Thank you to all of the SCCM members and staff who have supported SCCM global health activities. Whether you have participated directly or donated, you make a difference. And now that you know a little bit more about me and more about what SCCM has been doing, it is clear that SCCM remains a consequential organization because time and again, from education to research to humanitarian support, we have adapted to paradigm shifts of all types and risen like the phoenix. In other words, we not only lived interesting times of growth, but survived and thrived in so many areas. But in this great time of change, our mission has never wavered. SCCM's commitment to improve the care of critically ill and injured across the planet remains consistent. As a global leader in health care, we are a force for good, helping unlock the best care possible for critically ill and injured patients in every country, community, and setting, both in the U.S. and globally. The continued support of our partners and partners and setting, both in the U.S. and globally. The continued support of SCCM members, donors, sponsors, advertisers, and essential partners is essential to our success. Because of all of you, our collective efforts have had a major impact on the care of critically ill and injured everywhere. So how will you choose growth? Will you volunteer to help develop strategies for improved patient outcomes in low-resource environments, contribute to humanitarian programs, and or help build research and research funding? As a critical care clinician, these are just a few of the opportunities you have to contribute, thereby joining in SCCM's mission to provide the highest quality care for all critically ill and injured patients. My leadership journey in SCCM has provided me with professional growth, networking, and personal satisfaction. Each and every one of you have an opportunity, same as me, to increase your involvement in SCCM and achieve more professional satisfaction. There are many ways you can become involved in our ongoing initiatives. I invite you to choose growth as we continue to improve critical care around the world. Thank you. ♪♪

Lauren Source

Society of Critical Care Medicine

critical care

leadership

global health

humanitarian programs

research funding