Nutrition – Course & Fellowships

• Danielle BEAR – Dietitian, PhD Consultant Dietitian – critical care, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom. FREM Committee, ESICM
• Michael CASAER – MD, PhD, Intensive Care Medicine Department – Burn Centre Laboratory of Intensive Care Medicine, CMM University Hospitals Leuven, Catholic University Leuven, Chair of the Feeding, Rehabilitation, Endocrinology & Metabolism (FREM) Section, ESICM

Endorsement: This Course is endorsed by the ESICM Feeding, Rehabilitation, Endocrinology & Metabolism (FREM) Section and the Nursing and Allied Healthcare Professionals (N&AHP) representative group, ESICM.

• Discuss the evidence surrounding enteral (EN) and parenteral nutrition (PN) during the different phases of the metabolic response to critical illness.
• Understand and analyze the value of observational and controlled studies in assessing patient-centred outcomes (particularly physical function) with reliable estimates of treatment effect and translation to the bedside.
• Understand the value and limitations of scores and biomarkers for assessing nutrition status, timing of nutrition and risk of refeeding syndrome.
• Understand and analyze the indication for different PN & EN formulations and different access-modalities (nasal/oral tube versus percutaneous access to the stomach, duodenum or jejunum)
• Outline and assess the target for energy (including indirect calorimetry), protein, micronutrients and electrolytes and blood glucose levels and their translation into pragmatic protocols and quality improvement strategies

• Importance of Feeding
• Understanding Nutrition research
• Nutritional Assessment
• Nutritional Targets
• Nutritional Therapy
• Enteral Nutrition
• Parenteral Nutrition
• Monitoring and Complications
• Protocols
• Quality improvement and knowledge transfer to the bedside
• Novel perspectives

• Intensive care doctors, nurses and allied health care professionals (N&AHPs) with high interest in patient nutrition in intensive care.

A total of 10 fellowships fully supported by Fresenius Kabi are offered to the top scoring participants in the Nutrition in Critical Illness eCourse. This will be an opportunity for the participants who have achieved a sufficient level of both attendance and assessment performance to undertake fellowships in specific areas of nutrition in critical care, gaining bedside teaching from experts at globally renowned academic health sciences centres.  Fellowships will last 1 week and will come with a bursary of 1000 EUR to support travel and accommodation at the site.

Centres and tutors

• Karolinska University Hospital, Karolinska, Sweden – Olav ROOYACKERS, Martin SUNDSTRÖM REHAL and the local team (October 13–17, 2025)
• University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium – Michael CASAER, Jan GUNST and the local team (August 25-29, 2025)

Eligibility and Application for Fellowships

• Membership: Applicants must be members of ESICM (join now if you are not already a member).
• Course attendance: Applicants must attend the 2-day eCourse on Nutrition in Critical Illness.
• Selection criteria: Fellowships will be awarded based on:
  • Quality of the application
  • Performance in the post-course evaluation
  • Consideration of multidisciplinary and geographical representation
  • Applicants who have previously received a fellowship may be asked to provide evidence of how the fellowship outcomes were implemented or disseminated.
• Final selection will be decided by the expert evaluators.

Application Requirements

• Complete the Fellowship Application Form.
• Upload a Letter of Motivation, outlining your professional activity and motivation for applying.
• Upload a Letter of Support from your supervisor (required for junior applicants). This should confirm that your unit will support you in implementing the knowledge and skills gained during the fellowship. Note: This must be distinct from the Letter of Motivation.

Important Note

• Priority will be given to applicants who:
  • Have not previously received a fellowship on this topic
  • Have not been awarded any fellowship in the current year
  • Provide evidence of how the outcomes of previous fellowship they benefitted from were implemented or disseminated.

ESICM members from the Emerging Nations and Eastern Europe (see list of countries here) are entitled to an discount on registration fees. To qualify, participants must be active ESICM members for the current year. To become a member, please see more information here.

The Nutrition in Critical Illness, Virtual, Belgium 24/04/2025 – 25/04/2025, has been accredited by the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME®) with 13.5  European CME credits (ECMEC®s). Each medical specialist should claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.

Through an agreement between the Union Européenne des Médecins Spécialistes and the American Medical Association, physicians may convert EACCME® credits to an equivalent number of AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM. Information on the process to convert EACCME® credit to AMA credit can be found at https://edhub.ama-assn.org/pages/applications .

Live educational activities, occurring outside of Canada, recognised by the UEMS-EACCME® for ECMEC®s are deemed to be Accredited Group Learning Activities (Section 1) as defined by the Maintenance of Certification Program of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

This year’s first edition was attended by 79 participants from 38 countries. Here’s what they thought was the best part of the event:

• Great that it was a multidisciplinary course. Fantastic speakers and very interesting presentations.
• The e-course was very well organised as it is already a standard for all ESICM events. Perhaps the best aspect is the possibility to communicate directly with the faculty members.
• Very practical course and directed to the clinical practice. It also revealed the gaps in the current knowledge and areas in need of further research.
• The experience of participants is invaluable. The attention and availability they have for us during the event are totally graceful. The pictures and videos they share with us are awesome. I would do it again and again.
• For me the combination of practical (learning through clinical cases) and theoretical part. This helped a lot to understand.
• The best aspect was the possibility of asking questions to professionals and authors of guidelines. The second one – was the presence of perfect clinical cases as practical side of this ecourse.

This year’s edition was attended by 117 participants from 47 countries. Here’s what they thought was the best part of the event:

• High quality and enthusiastic speakers.
• It was extremely useful in all aspects, organisation, information, case presentation, updates,
• I enjoyed the entire event. It was interactive which was really good at helping to keep people motivated to watch the event. I enjoyed each talk and especially the case studies.
• The discussion about new and actualized topics, it is amazing because i can use it in my workplace.
• The clinical case where the important information was put into practice. It helped understanding how much one had retained from the previous study and presentations but also on how to use this information in reality.
• The clinical case workshops for me were the most enjoyable because even though it was “situational/theoretical” for this course, we get to apply what was discussed in terms of how we approach the case provided.
• Faculty with strong expertise and wide array of experience in critical care nutrition.
• Lot of physiological concepts explained very well, backed by evidence. It zas nice to hear it from the authors who were involved in the studies themselves.
• Great interactive learning, enough time for questions. Very informative.
• The best aspect was that all the activities were interactive so you can participate in an active way all the time.
• Good coverage of different aspects of nutrition. Knowledgeable speakers. Very up to date knowledge. Plenty of points for discussion. Helped me gain a good understanding of the variation in practice.
• One cannot find better faculty member than this for the course. The sessions were highly interactive, with a focus on encouraging questions throughout the ongoing presentation rather than waiting until the end.
• The quality of the program and presentations.
• The experts and their spirit. This was very helpful to be engaged throughout the whole course. They were always available to answer our questions.
• The case-based discussions are in my opinion the course’s huge strength as they really allow one to pick the experts brains and see how different centres provide nutritional care.
• Besides the excellent presentations I found it great that the speakers shared their personal thoughts and practices.
• The opportunity to learn about the implementation of clinical nutrition in other medical centres.
• Exchange of thoughts of audience and the lecturer. Giving us the reality of our patients and the management dilemma we face.