Manu L.n.g. Malbrain MD

Manu Malbrain (1965) graduated as a doctor (MD) from the Catholic University of Leuven in 1991. After his primary specialization in internal medicine (1996, KUL, highest distinction) he specialized in Intensive Care (1997). He was ICU Director in various hospitals in Belgium (including Ste-Anne St-Remi in Anderlecht, Europe Hospitals campus Ste-Elisabeth in Uccle, ZNA Stuivenberg and St-Erasmus in Antwerp, where he was also responsible for the High Care Burn Unit and Hyperbaric Oxygen chamber, and the University Hospital Brussels in Jette). As head of an ICU department, the organizational and administrative tasks increased to such an extent over the years that he continued his training through extensive studies in medical management (at the Vlerick Management School in Ghent, the EHSAL Hogeschool in Brussels and INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France)

He was a part-time medical director at ZNA Stuivenberg and St-Erasmus for about 4 years (2013-2017). Afterward, he was head of the ICU department and crisis manager at UZ Brussel (UZB), Belgium, and professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), where he successfully realized the transformation of the ICU department, and together with a whole new team of intensivists he implemented clinical leadership and professionalism (2017-2020). Until March 2022, he was Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the AZ Jan Palfijn hospital, in Ghent, where he started many innovative projects as chief physician, which will partly form the basis for 'Jan Palfijn 3.0'. Now he made the transition from hospitals to medical data management as CMO of Medaman, an Ehden-certified SME, combined with his position as professor of Critical Care Research at the First Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Therapy of the Medical University of Lublin in Poland.

He is the current and founding president of the International Fluid Academy (www.fluidacademy.org) and is actively involved in the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM), where he chaired the Working Group on Abdominal Problems and Sepsis (WGAP) within the POIC section (2009-2013). He is a member of the scientific subcommittee of the European Society of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC). He is also the founding president and current treasurer of the Abdominal Compartment Society (WSACS, www.wsacs.org).

He studied the effects of elevated intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) and (abdominal) sepsis in ICU patients for the past 30 years and in 2007 he successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the same topic (PhD, KU Leuven). In addition to abdominal pressure, organ-organ crosstalk, and hemodynamic monitoring, he is an expert in sepsis and fluid therapy, and he guides hospitals in the roll-out of sepsis and fluid stewardship as a quality project. He is the national coordinator and member of the steering committee of the European Sepsis Care Survey and chair of the Belgian sepsis expert group.