About us

Founded in 1994, at the initiative of a group of practitioners, the CFAR is the French College of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care.

As its name indicates, the CFAR is composed of men and women practicing the same medical specialty, and is designed to promote this discipline, share practices and exchange ideas about professional practices.

The CFAR is a non-profit association and now has more than 1,500 members from all over France.

The College governance comprises a Board of Management, chaired by Prof. Paul-Michel Mertes since 2014. Several committees have been created, in addition to the Executive Committee, to implement the association’s actions in the fields of accreditation, continuous professional training, occupational health and communication.

CFAR’s missions:

  1. Coordinate the initial training and professional practice needs of AnaesthetistsIntensive care physicians;
  2. Promote and ensure the quality of university and postgraduate training of Anaesthetists-Intensive care physicians in France,
  3. Promote quality and safety of care by improvement of knowledge, evaluation and improvement of professional practices, risk analysis and risk management.

CFAR’s actions:

  • The CFAR approves Continuing Medical Education in Anaesthesia-Intensive care, based on the following criteria: quality of training, financial transparency, scientific independence.
  • The CFAR develops turnkey Professional Practice Evaluation (PPE) programmes to allow Anaesthetists-Intensive care physicians to evaluate their daily practices. These programmes are elaborated from scientific guidelines validated by the speciality (SFAR – French Association of Anaesthetists-Intensive care physicians).
  • The CFAR establishes the Anaesthetists-Intensive care physicians accreditation programme, a risk management programme implementing the guidelines defined by the SFAR Risks Committee.
  • The CFAR is the Organisme de Développement Professionnel Continu (ODPC)
    [continuous professional development organisation] and proposes continuous professional development programmes for Anaesthetists-Intensive care physicians.
  • The CFAR is the professional interlocutor with university bodies responsible for the initial training of future practitioners.
  • The CFAR implements actions related to Anaesthesia-Intensive care professional bodies to resolve practitioners’ professional problems, especially in terms of occupational health.
  • The CFAR is involved in various multidisciplinary actions on these various themes (training, professional development, well-being at work), in collaboration with the Haute Autorité de Santé, Ministries, etc.

The CFAR’s action focuses on risk reduction…

By definition, the concept of risk plays a decisive role in Anaesthesia-Intensive care. The risks related to this specialty have already been reduced, but there is still room for improvement, which is the role of the CFAR, with its members, for the benefit of all practitioners. The risk of morbidity and mortality related to anaesthesia is currently estimated to be 10-5, while this risk in the perioperative environment is 10-2 to 10-3. The College’s objective is to achieve a risk of 10-6, similar to that applied to high security systems (civil aviation, nuclear industry).

… based on a collegiate and partnership approach.

The CFAR plays a central role in the specialty and works together with all bodies representing Anaesthesia-Intensive care:

  • The learned society (SFAR): it defines and disseminates the state of the art (annual conferences), establishes good clinical and/or organizational practice guidelines, represents the discipline in the various institutional authorities.
  • Professional unions: Syndicat National des Anesthésistes-Réanimateurs Français (SNARF) for private practitioners; Syndicat des Médecins Anesthésistes-Réanimateurs des Hôpitaux non Universitaires (SMARNU); Syndicat National des Praticiens Hospitaliers d’Anesthésie-Réanimation élargi (SNPHARe).
  • University bodies responsible, in particular, for the initial training of anaesthetistsintensive care physicians: Collégiale des Professeurs d’Université-Praticiens Hospitaliers en Anesthésie Réanimation, derived from Professeurs d’Université – Praticiens Hospitaliers français.