Fidelma Maire Fitzpatrick MB BAO BCh, MD, DME, FRCPI, FRCPath, Dip Med El, PGDip HPE

Dr Fidelma Maire Fitzpatrick, MB BAO BCh, MD, DME, FRCPI, FRCPath, Dip Med-El, PGDip HPE, is a Professor and Head of Department RCSI at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. She has chaired the HSE National Sepsis Steering Group since the establishment of the national sepsis programme.  In addition, she is in her second term as elected chair of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Study Group for Clostridioides difficile, the RCSI representative on the board of the Dublin Dental Hospital and a member of the Community antimicrobial prescribing committee, HSE Antimicrobial Resistance Infection Control (AMRIC) and National Healthcare-associated infection (HAI) hospital point prevalence steering group, Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC).

Previously Prof Fitzpatrick worked at a national level from 2010-2014. As the first National clinical lead for the prevention of HAI and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), she established the national clinical programme, led the national public information campaign on antibiotics, national hand hygiene and antimicrobial stewardship campaigns and oversaw the establishment of the National AMR Intersectoral Coordinating Committee between the Dept of Health and Dept of Agriculture. As a consultant microbiologist in the HPSC, she established C. difficile surveillance in Ireland, chaired a number of national guideline committees, was the European Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) national HAI focal point and coordinated the first national HAI prevalence studies in both hospitals and long-term care facilities.

In 2014, Prof. Fitzpatrick completed the Scottish Patient Safety Fellowship (Healthcare Improvement Scotland) and established a local quality improvement initiative in conjunction with the surgical clinical director (@betterbeaumont) in her hospital, to encourage frontline staff to develop and work through improvement ideas.