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The Board

The Board is responsible for the management of the Federation according to the decisions of the General Assembly, taking account of the recommendations of the Council.

The Board meets monthly by teleconference and physically usually twice a year. In practice, and thanks to our increasingly connected world, its members provide daily leadership, guidance and stewardship of a complex and busy global organisation. The WFSA CEO attends in a non-voting capacity.

Prof Daniela Filipescu (Romania)

President

Daniela Filipescu is a cardiac anaesthesiologist, Professor of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy and Chief of the Cardiac Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Department II at the Emergency Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Bucharest. She also holds a Masters degree in health management.

Dr Filipescu was the first Romanian to hold the European Diploma of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care. She has held various elected positions in the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA), including President of the ESA (2014-2015) and was awarded ESA Honorary Membership in 2017. 

Dr Filipescu’s main research interests include haemostasis, transfusion, sepsis and patient safety. She currently chairs both the Scientific Committee of the Romanian Society of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Congress and a national multidisciplinary group for the implementation of a Patient Blood Management programme based in Romania.

Dr Carolina Haylock-Loor (Honduras)

President-Elect

Dr Haylock-Loor graduated as a medical doctor in Honduras before completing postgraduate training in Spain and working as an anaesthesiologist, intensivist, and interventional pain physician at San Pedro Sula. In 2012, in liaison with the University of Florida, she achieved the oximetry gap zeroing in Honduras as part of the WHO checklist project. She is the past President of Honduran Anesthesia Society.

Carolina has represented the Latin American region as a council member for the WFSA since 2012. In 2020, she was elected as the WFSA Director of Programs, and she also chairs the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. She is also chairing the Volume metrics group for the Utstein2 Global Surgical Health Indicators Project.

Dr Haylock-Loor is particularly passionate about education and has taught trainees on the Honduran Anesthesiology Residency Program in Pain Management. She has promoted WFSA courses in the Latin American region, including EPM (Essential Pain Management), SAFE (Safer Anaesthesia from Education) Obstetric, SAFE Paediatric, SAFE OR (operating room), PTC (Primary Trauma Care), VAST (Vital Anesthesia Simulation Training) and VAST wellbeing module. She has been an invited speaker for international meetings in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

 

Dr Balavenkatasubramanian Jagannathan (India)

Secretary

Dr Balavenkatasubramanian is the Senior Consultant & Academic Director at the Department of Anaesthesia & Perioperative Care, Ganga Medical Centre in Coimbatore, India. He is also the President of the Indian Society of Anaesthesiologists, the Academic Chairman of the Asian Oceanic Society of Regional Anaesthesia & Pain Medicine and the National Chairman of the Academy of Regional Anaesthesia of India.
 
He is also the Program Head for the WFSA Ganga Hospital Regional Anaesthesia Fellowship since 2015, a Member of the Educational Committee, WFSA 2020-2024. His area of Interest is Regional  & Orthopaedic Anaesthesia, Perioperative Medicine, Trauma Care, Geriatrics, Leadership, Education and Training.

Prof Walid Habre (Switzerland)

Treasurer

Professor Walid Habre is a senior consultant in Paediatric Anaesthesia at the University Hospitals of Geneva and Ordinary Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He has been engaged as a Committee member at the WFSA and supported the WFSA actions at the time when ESA became a regional Society of the Federation. Professor Habre has a multicultural background and as a clinical scientist, he established an important network worldwide particularly with PanArab and Afrique Francophone, particularly given his language expertise.

Finally, Professor Habre has previously served as Chair of a Scientific Sub-Committee, Council member, industry liaison officer, Congress and media committee member at the ESA, which allowed him to carry out important networking with industry partners, to have an in-depth knowledge of the challenges in raising funds and to reach financial equilibrium with Congress organisations.

Dr Pedro Ibarra (Colombia)

Director of Partnerships

Dr Ibarra holds a critical care fellowship in trauma anaesthesia from New York University and an MSc in Healthcare Informatics from the University of Bath. In 1992, he developed the Anesthesia Practice Minimal Standards of the Colombian Society of Anesthesiologists (SCARE), which were adopted by the Health Ministry as mandatory requirements for anaesthesia practice in Colombia. As chair of the Safety Committee he also led the publication of the Consensus in Anaesthesia Safety for Plastic Surgery and Sedation Practice by non-Anesthesiologists.

Over the last 25 years, Dr Ibarra has been at the forefront of a number new developments in Colombian anaesthesiology, including streamlined preanesthetic testing algorithms, dynamic volemia monitoring, rational fluid management, the concept of optimizing HbA1C prior to major arthroplasties in diabetics and the first Patient Blood Management program in Colombia.

He has been a member of the WFSA Education Committee and the Safety Committee and chair of the Safety Committee for CLASA.

Dr Faye Evans (USA)

Director of Programmes

Dr. Evans is a senior associate in perioperative anaesthesia in the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care & Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor in Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School where her specialty is in pediatric anesthesia.  She is the current Chair of the Education committee for the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists and a pediatric editor for Anesthesia Tutorial of the Week.  

She serves on the Lifebox, Global Governance Council, the Medical Advisory Board for Smile Train, and is on the Board for the Global Initiative in Children’s surgery.   Her efforts currently focus on improving the quality and safety of anaesthesia in low- and middle-income settings through education and advocacy. She has been involved with a variety of global educational initiatives and is currently co-leading the PATA (Paediatric Anaesthesia Training in Africa) initiative that is helping to establish 5 new pediatric anaesthesia fellowships in Africa. 

Dr Luiz Fernando dos Reis Falcão (Brazil)

Director of Memberships

Dr Falcão is associate professor and chair of the Department of Anesthesia and Pain at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), Brazil. He is currently Director of International Affairs for the Brazilian Society of Anesthesiologists (SBA).

Additionally, he is Chief Medical Officer of the company “Anextesia”. He holds an MBA from FGV, PhD from UNIFESP and a postdoctoral degree from Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts General Hospital).

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