Dr Élie Azoulay is the Assistant Director of the Medical ICU at the Saint-Louis Teaching Hospital, Paris, France. He is a professor of medicine at the Denis Diderot Paris 7 University. From his background as a pulmonologist, Dr Azoulay developed a strong research focus on acute respiratory failure in immunocompromized patients. His PhD work was on respiratory physiology in an experimental model of cancer chemotherapy-related pulmonary toxicity. He has several published clinical research studies on acute respiratory failure in hematology and oncology patients. Also, Dr Azoulay leads a collaborative multicenter group that has performed observational studies, large cohort studies, and randomized controlled trials in cancer patients with ARF. His second major field of interest in clinical research is communication with family members of ICU patients. He constituted a research group in 1997 (the French Famirea Study Group) to evaluate the ability of critical care clinicians to provide effective information to ICU patients and families. Several of his published studies investigated the burden of critical illness in relatives and in ICU clinicians. The group’s major aim is to identify targets for improvement and to test potential interventions in international RCTs in order to advance ICU practices in the field of information and communication. In addition to clinical and research activities, Dr Azoulay teaches pulmonary medicine, critical care medicine, and ethics at the Paris Medical School. He is also associate editor of Intensive Care Medicine, in the editorial board of the American Journal of respiratory and Critical Care medicine, and the chairman of the ethics section of the ESICM. Dr Azoulay is a member of the European board of Pfizer and Gilead.
