Editorial introductions

Abstract

Current Opinion in Anesthesiology was launched in 1988. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of anesthesiology is divided into 15 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Editors of the journal and the Section Editors for this issue. EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Paul BarashPaul BarashPaul Barash, MD is currently Professor of Anesthesiology at Yale Medical School, USA, and has served as Chair of the Department, as well as Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs. In addition to more than three hundred contributions to literature in the form of original scientific publications, reviews book chapters and abstracts, he is Senior Editor of the Clinical Anesthesia series of textbooks and electronic media. The Lippincott-Raven Interactive Anesthesia CD, of which he is Senior Editor, has received the international Folio Award as the best teaching CD in Medicine, Science and Technology. He is also Senior Editor of the first anesthesia software designed specifically for personal digital assistants (PDA), Clinical Anesthesia for the PDA. As a cardiac anesthesiologist, he has been repeatedly named in the Best Doctors in America publication. Dr Barash served as chair of Multicenter Study for Perioperative Ischemia (McSPI) which is the largest group of investigators in the world studying perioperative cardiovascular complications; their publications have appeared in leading medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. He has served as President of the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, the major professional group for his sub-specialty. In addition, he served as a senior examiner for the certification process of the American Board of Anesthesiology. Finally, he serves as consultant to NASA on Perioperative Medicine for Manned Space Flight (Anesthesia Pre and Post Flight Working Group). Hugo Van AkenHugo Van AkenDr Hugo Van Aken has been Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Therapy, University Hospital Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany since August 1995. From 1986 until 1995 he was Professor and Chair at the Department of Anaesthesiology of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. He is currently Editor-in-Chief for Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology and Editor for Baillière's Best Practice in Research and Anaesthesiology as well as a member of several anaesthetic international editorial boards and scientific societies. From 1999 to 2011 he served as member of the Board of Trustees of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS). From 2001 until the end of 2006, he was President of the DAAF (German Academy of Education in Anaesthesiology). From 2000 to 2004, he was President of the European Academy of Anaesthesiology (EAA). Following the amalgamation of the three major European anaesthesia organizations, he served as Secretary of the new European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA) from 2005 to 2006. From 2008 to 2011 he served as Chairman of the National Anaesthesia Societies Committee (NASC) of the ESA. From 2007 to 2008 he was president of the German Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive-Care Medicine (DGAI). Since 2009, he has been Secretary General of the DGAI. Since 2012 he has been a member of the Executive Committee of the World federation of Societies of Anesthesiology (WFSA) and Liason officer for the World Health Organization (WHO) as member of the Executive Committee of the WFSA. Dr Van Aken has been an honorary member of the American Association of University Anesthesiologists (AUA) since 1990. In 1992, he became an honorary member of the Polish Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive-Care Therapy, and in 2000 he was made an honorary member of the Belgian Society of Anaesthesia and Resuscitation. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (FRCA) and a fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (FANZCA). In 2003, he was elected as an honorary member of the Association of Anaesthesiologists of Georgia and as an honorary member of the American Society of Anesthesiology. In 2007, he was awarded honorary membership of the Czech Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive-Care Medicine and in 2009 honorary membership of the German Society of Internal Medicine as well as honorary membership of the Dutch Society of Anaesthesiology. In 2009 he was appointed as a member of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina). In 2012 he became an honorary member of the Chinese Society of Anesthesiology. Dr Van Aken is author of more than 510 articles in current content listed journals, and many chapters in national and international textbooks, and has a variety of major research interests including regional anesthesia, sepsis and intestinal microcirculation. SECTION EDITORS Wanda M. PopescuWanda M. PopescuWanda M. Popescu MD is the Director of the Thoracic Anesthesia Section in the Department of Anesthesiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Dr Popescu received her medical degree from Carol Davila Medical School, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania in 1996. She completed her anesthesiology residency training at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, USA, in 2002. She undertook two fellowships in vascular and cardio-thoracic anesthesiology at Yale University School of Medicine between 2002 and 2004. Subsequently, she remained on faculty as an Assistant Professor and is currently an Associate Professor at Yale University School of Medicine. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters related to cardiovascular anesthesia. She has lectured at multiple national and international meetings. Her main research interests are focused on the cardiovascular disturbances associated with obesity and the optimal perioperative management of antiplatelet medications in patients with coronary stents. Dr Popescu is an active member of many professional societies, including the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists and the American Society of Anesthesiologists. She serves as a member of the Advanced Perioperative Transesophageal Echocardiography Examination writing committee for the National Board of Echocardiography and a provisional oral board examiner for the American Board of Anesthesiology. Kai ZacharowskiKai ZacharowskiProfessor Kai Zacharowski holds the position of the Ordinarius and is the Director of the Clinic of Anesthesia, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Therapy at the University Hospital Frankfurt, Germany. His research, teaching, and consulting interests are in both basic and clinical aspects of innate immunity, cardiovascular and critical care medicine. Kai received his MD from the German University of Mainz and his PhD from Queen Mary, University of London, UK, (where he was working with the Nobel laureate Prof. Sir John Vane who discovered how aspirin works). He was funded for three years as a clinical fellow from the German Heart Foundation and German Society of Heart Research. His scientific contributions are published in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature Medicine, Lancet and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and were awarded with the prestigious Dr Ernst Wiethoff Award for Innovative Clinical Research. He has obtained two clinical specializations (anesthesia/intensive care medicine and clinical pharmacology) and is practicing anesthesia and critical care medicine in Frankfurt. One of his discoveries that fibrin fragments play a role in heart attacks led to the development of a drug which has been successfully studied in a phase 2 clinical trial (patients with acute myocardial infarction undergoing coronary artery angioplasty).