About CCR
What we are
What we do
How we do it
We review the literature daily, collating the most important articles. These are added to the website, creating a single repository of the most important landmark trials, open access guidelines and narrative reviews.
Via our meetings and ad hoc livestreams, we also host results presentations of major international trials.
Through our podcast, book and blog, we discuss the implications of the latest trials.
Our story
The first iteration, Critical Care Knowledge, started in 2008, as a means of sharing important papers in critical care.
In 2009, it was rebranded and relaunched as Critical Care Reviews. Over the next 15 years, CCR has grown into one of the most respected critical care educational platforms in the world.
Today, the CCR platform spans a website, weekly newsletter, two meetings, podcast, ad hoc livestreams and annual book. It is used by tens of thousands, benefitting the patients they care for.
The meetings, in Belfast and Melbourne, are widely considered to be the best critical care meetings globally. Our most recent meeting, CCR Down Under, was viewed in over 90 countries.
Our Vision
Why we do it
How we fund our work
After a decade of growth, the ever increasing time committment to maintain our resources forced us to become professional or reduce our workload. We now have one fulltime employee, managing the various operations of the platform, as well as the Belfast meeting. To fund this, we charge clinicians in high- and high-middle income countries to receive the weekly newsletter. Those in lower income countries receive it for free. Everything else on the platform is free, including the livestream of our meetings.
CCR Supporter
If you are in a high income country, you can support our work directly, and the work of your colleagues around the world indirectly, via a one time donation or a regular newsletter subscription. You can help for as little as the price of a cup of coffee
Critical Care Reviews
Sharing Science
Join us in Titanic Belfast to discuss the best critical care trials in the world. June 11th to 13th, 2025
Website
The Critical Care Reviews website houses all our resources. Check out the various tabs on the menu for more details on our content
Critical Care Reviews Team
Rob Mac Sweeney
Rob started Critical Care Reviews in 2009 to freely share the latest scientific advances in the field of intensive care medicine. During the day, he is a fulltime intensivist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is an Honary Professor of Practice at Queen's University Belfast,
Emma Mac Sweeney
Emma started in Spring 2022 as the first Director of Operations for Critical Care Reviews. She manages the financial and logistical activities of this continually growing organisation. She is Critical Care Reviews' first employee.
Belfast Meeting Team
Rob Mac Sweeney
Rob started Critical Care Reviews in 2009 to freely share the latest scientific advances in the field of intensive care medicine. During the day, he is a fulltime intensivist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is an Honary Professor of Practice at Queen's University Belfast,
Chris Nutt
Chris works across the platform, driving progress in the growth and direction of the organisation. He is a fulltime intensivist and anaesthetist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast.
Catriona Kelly
Catriona leads the organisation of the annual meeting, and specialises in the putting toegther a diverse and engaging social programme. She is a fulltime neurointensivist and neuroanaesthetist in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin.
Phil Gillen
Phil is a key component in the success of both the meeting and livestream, taking on unseen roles to ensure their smooth operation. He is also a fulltime intensivist and anaesthetist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, as well as the lead for the adult critical care transfer service for Northern Ireland.
Emma Mac Sweeney
Emma started in Spring 2022 as the first Director of Operations for Critical Care Reviews. She manages the financial and logistical activities of this continually growing organisation. She is Critical Care Reviews' first employee.
Bronwen Connolly
Bronwen is a Professor of Critical Care at Queen's University Belfast and leads the MARCH trial, investigating mucolytics in criticallly ill patients. She
Rowan Grieves
Melbourne Meeting Team
CCR Down Under is run in association with The Alfred Intensive Care Academic Centre, with AV support from Manta Communications, Melbourne.
Previous Contributors
Jakub Fronczek
Kuba is our first team member from outside Northern Ireland. He leads on visual abstracts and our new instagram account. He is an anaesthesiology & critical care trainee in Cracow, Poland, and an Editorial Fellow at the British Journal of Anaesthesia.
Toby Betteridge
Toby is a Specialist in Intensive Care and Anaesthesia in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has been the ANZICS CTG committee member for New Zealand since 2021 and was previously on the board of the ANZICF. His research interests include neurocritical care, optimisation of organ flow and its measurement, mechanical ventilation, and the impact of right ventricular dysfunction on ICU outcome.
Michael Behal
Michael is the Post-Doctoral Academic Fellow at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy in Lexington, KY, and a pharmacist practicing in the medical intensive care unit at University of Kentucky Healthcare.
Sarah Corbett
Sarah is a consultant anaesthetist from Galway, Ireland, and is currently working in an echo fellowship in Wellington, New Zealand.
Rosalyn Chi
Rosalyn is an emergency medicine physician from New Jersey who is now training as a critical care fellow at Indiana University, USA.
Toni Riveros
Toni Riveros is an EM-CCM trained intensivist based out of the Chicagoland area. Her clinical areas of interest are communication between patients, their advocates and providers, and improving workflow and team dynamics during in-hospital cardiac arrests. Originally from Los Angeles, California, she now actually enjoys the temperamental weather of the Midwest.
Enrique Ortiz-Diaz
Anestis Karakatsanis
Anestis was born and raised in Greece, where he completed residency in General Surgery and later a Critical Care fellowship. He has been practising as an Consultant in Critical Care for the last 4.5 years. His interests include resuscitation, acute surgical critical care and trauma, and mechanical ventilation. Anestis is ardent supporter of free open access medical education.
Varun U. Shetty
Varun is an adult intensivist at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), Hamot Hospital, Erie. Varun’s focus is on healthcare disparities in critical care and care of the critically ill in global health settings. He is interested in developing sustainable systems that will consistently provide high-quality care to critically ill patients anywhere.
Carmen López Soto
Jonathan Ball
Jonathan is currently based in Auckland, New Zealand, doing full time ICU. He spent over 15 years as a General and Neuro ICU consultant in south London, where he trained, to return to Australasia, where he had previously completed 18-months of post training fellowships. His clinical and research interests cover a broad range of topics from pathophysiology to palliative care.
Patrick Eckert
Patrick is an attending physician in Emergency Medicine and Critical Care at Christiana Care Health
System in Wilmington, Delaware USA. He works primarily in the medical ICU and is active in resident
education and critical care ultrasound.
Shakti Mishra
Dr Shakti Bedanta Mishra is a Professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at IMS and SUM.
Rohit Patnaik
Dr Rohit Patnaik is an Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at IMS and SUM. His areas of interest are POCUS and Mechanical Ventilation.
Dr Sagarika Panda
Dr Sagarika Panda is an Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at IMS and SUM. His areas of interest are nosocomial infections and Septic Shock.
Rupali Patnaik
Dr Rupali Patnaik is an Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at IMS and SUM. Her areas of interest are ARDS and RRT in ICU.
Biswajit Nayak
Dr Biswajit Nayak is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at IMS and SUM. His areas of interest are quality improvement in ICU.
Abhilash Dash
Dr Abhilash Dash is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at IMS and SUM. His areas of interest are ECMO and CRRT.
Samir Samal
Dr Samir Samal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at IMS and SUM. His areas of interest are nosocomial infections.
Rafael Wabl
Rafael Wabl is a neurologist and neuro-critical care-trained intensivist working in a mixed medical and surgical ICU in the Seattle area. He loves running, reading fiction, and escaping into the mountains