Catalyst is coming… 23rd July 2026
Catalyst: Critical Care Ideas in Action fuses potent ideas with practical action. It is built for critical care clinicians of all stripes who want meaningful change to become reality.
To make this all happen, we are bringing together an exceptional group of clinicians, thinkers, and educators. This includes Victoria Brazil, Eve Purdy, Brian Burns, Tom Evens, Neil Orford, and Shaun Greene among others. Their expertise spans resuscitation, human factors, trauma, toxicology, leadership, and systems innovation — from prehospital, the ED, and the ICU. They will be joined by a faculty of interprofessional clinicians and educators from the Alfred ICU.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
The morning theme — Resuscitation of the Critically Ill — grapples with critical care toxicology, the art and science of resuscitology, and ECPR. We will be challenged to reexamine how we can save our sickest patients. Peak Performance in Critical Care follows in the afternoon. Here we examine how we perform under pressure, how we make teams work, and how we build cultures that support patient care. This is the human side of high‑stakes care — the mindsets, behaviours and workplace environments that allow clinicians to bring their best when it matters.
Central to Catalyst are high‑impact IDEAS talks — provocations that will inspire, clarify, and spark curiosity. They lead to immersive ACTION breakout sessions where participants roll up their sleeves, share their perspectives, and discover solutions to patient care problems. Each theme closes with a collective reflection to reinforce insights and support real change.
We hope you will be there with us.
Find out more and register at the Catalyst event page.
Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at The Alfred ICU, where he is Deputy Director (Education). He is a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University, the Lead for the Clinician Educator Incubator programme, and a CICM First Part Examiner.
He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives. He was one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) has been recognised for his contributions to education with awards from ANZICS, ANZAHPE, and ACEM.
His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.
On Bluesky, he is @precordialthump.bsky.social and on the site that Elon has screwed up, he is @precordialthump.
| INTENSIVE | RAGE | Resuscitology | SMACC