who are attending this conference. At the same time, I would like to congratulate the grand opening of the 18th Critical Care Medicine Conference!

Since its development in the early 1980s, the intensive care medicine profession in China has undergone more than 40 years of growth. The predecessors of the first five chairpersons and pioneers of intensive care medicine have laid a solid foundation for the discipline's development and gradually established a comprehensive medical, teaching, and research system. The past three years of the COVID-19 epidemic have tempered our team and gained wide recognition from the general public and the national medical administration. In recent years, under the leadership of the Chinese Medical Association, the Critical Care Medicine Branch has been committed to academic leadership: focusing on the training of young physicians and the construction of research teams; promoting the homogenization and standardization of intensive care medicine in county-level, prefectur-level, and provincial-level hospitals; and empowering young intensive care professionals through initiatives like the 5C and 5C PLUS. The establishment of secondary codes for the National Natural Science Foundation, the project aiming for enhancement of national difficult disease diagnosis and treatment capabilities, the establishment of national clinical research centers, and the construction of key laboratories in intensive care medicine have greatly improved intensive care service capabilities. Recently, the joint issuance of the document "Recommendations on Strengthening the Construction of Intensive Care Medicine Service Capacity" by eight ministries has brought greater development opportunities and challenges to intensive care medicine in China.

Intensive care medicine has developed into a major clinical discipline but is not yet a strong clinical discipline. Compared with international peers and sister disciplines, there are still many shortcomings, such as significant heterogeneity in the development of the discipline, the absence of undergraduate education and scientific degree codes for graduate students of intensive care medicine, a shortage of high-level talents at the national level, immature research teams, and a lack of original research results, which are currently hindering the development of intensive care medicine.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and is also a critical year for achieving the goals of the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan". General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and President Xi Jinping emphasized the acceleration of the development of new productive forces and the solid promotion of high-quality development during the eleventh collective study of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. The development of intensive care medicine also requires high-quality leadership. Through initiatives such as the certification of intensive care medicine specialist qualifications and core technical training, the formulation of guidelines and consensus, the allocation of high-quality intensive care resources to Grassroots healthcare institutions, and the publication of an annual intensive care yearbook, we can promote the homogenization and standardization of intensive care medicine; accelerate the development of subspecialties and construct a comprehensive discipline system; establish a teaching system that integrates undergraduate-graduate-residency training and the "Four-in-One" intensive care medicine teaching system; focus on independent innovation and achieve more breakthroughs in high-quality clinical and basic research output, striving to seize the high ground of discipline development; youth is the strength of the nation, young intensive care professionals should inherit and carry forward the fine traditions, dare to shoulder responsibilities, endure hardships, strive for innovation, and achieve more outstanding talents at the national, ministerial, and institutional levels. Make good use of academic exchange platforms such as China-Europe, China-US, and the Belt and Road Initiative, actively participate in international exchanges and cooperation, promote the synergistic effect of domestic and international academic development, and create favorable conditions for the vigorous development of intensive care medicine.

As the saying goes, " Chengdu is a beautiful landscape city, is just like opened by the Ninth Heaven, thousands of households are as beautiful as painting ". Chengdu is known as the "Land of Abundance". Warmly welcome all the colleagues in intensive care medicine, fellow colleagues in sister disciplines, and international friends to gather in the city of abundance, enjoy the beauty of Chengdu in spring, and discuss the present and future of intensive care medicine!

Finally, I wish the conference a complete success and all participants a fruitful experience!

Thank you.

Chairman of Chinese Society of Critical Care Medicine
May 2024