Convivial and thoughtful gatherings of the ESBICM Faculty Network — where serious conversations happen over coffee, in the spirit of a café gathering rather than the formality of a meeting room.

The Café is a gathering of the ESBICM Global Critical Care Faculty Network, online or in person. Faculty come together to discuss new papers, talk through clinical scenarios, plan programmes, or simply catch up on the work.

The name reflects the spirit we wanted. The work is real. The discussions are real. But the setting is light, the pace is unhurried, and there is room for warmth alongside substance.

There is no agenda counted in minutes, no set order of business, no formal proceedings. People bring themselves, with a cup of coffee, wherever they happen to be, and the conversation finds its own pace.

That does not make it slight. Recent papers, clinical cases, changes in evidence-based practice, community programmes, the direction of the society — all of it gets discussed. The Café simply trusts its participants to take these subjects seriously without needing the scaffolding of a formal meeting.

Our faculty already sit through a great many formal meetings. This one was built not to feel like more of the same.

The Café puts Research Faculty, Educator Faculty and NextGen Faculty in the same conversation — a senior intensivist appraising a trial, a colleague who has spent years learning how to teach it, and a resident who admitted a patient like that last night. The same problem, seen from three distances.

From time to time we invite a guest: a visiting expert, a member of the Advisory Board, or a colleague whose thinking the network would benefit from hearing.

This is the Faculty Network's own space. It is not open to the wider membership — not to keep anyone out, but because a conversation where people speak freely works best among those who have taken on the work together.

A typical Café might include any mix of:

• A recent paper, a landmark trial, or a guideline worth arguing over
• A clinical case or scenario someone wants to think through together
• ESBICM's programmes — courses, content, community
• Ideas, questions and proposals about where the society should go next
• Stories and shared experience from the work of critical care

Some Cafés lean academic, others operational, others reflective. Each Café finds its own shape based on what is on people's minds at the time.

There is no fixed schedule. A Café is convened when there is something worth gathering for.

It may be online, in person, or hybrid — all of them are the ESBICM Café. The ESBICM Office lets faculty know in advance, with the date, the format and the joining details.

The Café is coordinated by the ESBICM Office, under the Operations Director. Where a gathering has an academic or programme focus, its direction is shaped by the Academic Committee (ACE) or the Scientific Programmes and Events Committee (SPEC). The Founder President may also propose or shape a Café.

If you have a question, or an idea for a Café worth gathering for, write to the ESBICM Office.

The Café was first introduced on Ganesh Chaturthi in 2025, as a space for discussion among the more engaged members of the wider ESBICM community.

As the society matured — the Faculty Network formalised, the Mentorship Forum launched — the Café found its present form as a gathering of the Faculty Network. The spirit it began with has not changed: curiosity, generosity, and a willingness to think out loud with colleagues.