Dr. Waqas Akhtar: The future of Intensive Care Medicine
Dr Waqas Akhtar, consultant in Intensive Care, Cardiology & General Medicine
Dr. Waqas Akhtar is the only physician in the UK with advanced postgraduate certifications across Intensive Care, Cardiology, and General Internal Medicine. He was educated at University of Oxford and trained at renowned institutions Guy’s & St. Thomas’, Royal Brompton and Harefield, Barts Health and the Evelina. His clinical area of interest is in advanced heart failure, heart transplantation and mechanical circulatory support as well as holding accreditations in transthoracic echocardiography, transoesophageal echocardiography, cardiac computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.
In addition to his clinical roles, Dr. Akhtar holds significant national leadership positions. As Chair of the Academy Resident Doctors Committee at the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, he represents resident doctors across the UK and has worked on improvements in working conditions, workforce planning and recruitment practices and modernising curriculums. He is also a board member and lead intensivists in training representative of the UK Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine where he was worked on national policies on training flexibility, addressing healthcare culture and improving pathways for doctors entering intensive care across medicine, emergency medicine and anaesthesia specialties. He also holds roles as Honorary Treasurer of the Critical Care Section of Royal Society of Medicine, Co-President to the British Transplant Physician Trainees Society and Trainee representative in Organ Donation at NHS Blood & Transplant.
Dr. Akhtar’s clinical expertise is complemented by his pioneering initiatives in patient safety. He founded the multi patient safety award winning Mechanical Life Support program, which has addressed the resuscitation practices for patients with mechanical circulatory support devices such as Left Ventricular Assist Devices and Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. The program has trained thousands of healthcare professionals and established the first national resuscitation guidelines for these patients in the world. In addition, Dr. Akhtar and colleagues re-developed the extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) programme at Harefield Hospital, considerably increasing survival rates in cardiac arrest patients. Subsequently they have worked on fostering collaboration among the UK’s hospitals and providing a potential national framework for delivery of expanded and equitable ECPR for cardiac arrest patients.
Dr. Akhtar is a passionate advocate for ensuring adequate intensive care resources in the post pandemic medical landscape, where advancements make it possible to deliver highly complex life-saving care to sicker and older patients who can then survive with a good quality of life.
