Professor Armand Girbes is an esteemed member of the ICU Management Editorial Board.  Since 2001 he has been Professor in Intensive Care Medicine at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam since 2001.
 
We asked Professor Girbes our 7 questions: 
 
1. What are your key areas of interest and research?
Hypoperfusion and reperfusion
Mild therapeutic hypothermia
Communication
Feeding
Party drugs
Vaso-active medication
Organisation of intensive care
Ethics

2. What are the major challenges in your field?
Most important at this moment is to obtain funding for research projects. 
 
3. What is your top management tip?
Education and training of professionals is the most important thing. The only thing a manager should do is to make it as easy as possible for the professional to do his/her work and to bother the professional as little as possible.
 
4. What would you single out as a career highlight?
If it is about my career: my work for the Dutch intensive care guideline, the Irish intensive care guideline and the work for the educational program of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM).
 
5. If you had not chosen this career path you would have become a…?
Surgeon, gymnastics teacher or musician.
 
6. What are your personal interests outside of work?
Music, sports and languages.
 
7. Your favourite quote?
Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien [The best is the enemy of the good] - Voltaire. 
 
Prof. Girbes has worked at the VU University Medical Center since 1998. He has has a background in surgery and internal medicine, and is also a clinical pharmacologist. He has contributed to several guidelines in intensive care, and has served as an international advisor for the Irish Healthcare Authorities in Ireland. His publication record stands at more than 190 articles. For more than 30 years he has been involved in education, first as a gymnastic teacher and later as a lecturer/professor in medicine. As a hobby he gives lectures on the importance of body language.
 
Further reading
 
Girbes ARJ (2006-7) Use of induced hypothermia: acceptance and implementation issues. ICU Management 6(4). 
 
 
Königs M, Polderman KH, Girbes ARJ (2004) A management strategy to decrease ventilator associate pneumonia. ICU Management 4(2). 

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