Anesthesia, Pain, Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine — A.P.I.C.E.

These are the proceedings of the 14th Postgraduate Course in Critical Care Medicine. Critical care medicine is an interdisciplinary area of medicine drawing upon the specialties of anaesthesiology, internal medicine and surgery, and relying upon the essential contributions and support from basic research. Advances in critical care medicine depend on the application of new technologies to the clinic, the full integration of computers and informatics, the continual training of physicians and technicians, and the consideration of ethical issues in the clinical setting. Within this complex panorama of complementary approaches and viewpoints, it is apparent that critical care medicine is one of the best examples of evidence-based medicine.