Society of critical care medicine presidential address-42nd annual congress, January 2013, San Juan, Puerto Rico

摘要

I thank you for the honor and the opportunity of representing you hi the coming year. I've often felt that honor from peers and colleagues is the highest honor, and with it comes a special responsibility: not only to represent, but to lead; to help both an organization and its individual members move forward; to pick an aspect of our profession that is of special interest and needs urgent attention, and then give it an extra focus as your President.We have a tradition of that in our Society. Last year, Cliff Deutschman urged a reemphasis on bench and traditional research. The year before, Pamela Lipsett challenged us to learn new "stuff". And before that, Judy Jacobi focused on quality measures. This year, a happy coincidence, the challenge for those of us in critical care and my passion are one and the same: comfort strategies, especially pain management; changing in a significant way how we manage comfort in our patients.