Associate Professor Krister Nilsson

Born and raised in Stockholm Krister later moved to Gothenburg for his medical education. After completing his studies, he did House officer locums in both Paediatrics and Anaesthesia but decided that Anaesthesia would be his career choice- something that we all are very grateful for today.

After successfully completing his PhD thesis in 1974 concerning heat transmission in tissues, he became an Associate Professor in 1978 and then moved on to the Department of Paediatric Anaesthesia & Intensive Care where he became instrumental in making the Gothenburg department the leading department of Paediatric Anaesthesia and Intensive Care in Sweden, both from a clinical and academic perspective.

Krister was also one of the driving forces in the process of creating the Swedish APA and he was a natural choice for the society’s first Chairman.

However, today’s honorary membership is not awarded for his invaluable contributions to Swedish paediatric anaesthesia but for his international work first for the FEAPA, nowadays ESPA, and also later the paediatric sub-committee of ESA. At this point it may suffice to highlight his major effort in creating the hugely successful scientific and educational programmes for the FEAPA meetings in Helsinki and Cologne.

Together with fellow colleague Lars Larsson, Krister has also made a number of scientific contributions within different fields of paediatric anaesthesia, his research regarding perioperative fluids and glucose control being the best example. It should be remembered that most of these important scientific results were first reported at APA meetings.

With regards to the APA, Krister has been a regular at the Annual meetings- only missing very few during his active career. Krister was also able to create links with many of the representatives of the initial generation of APA frontrunners. These connections with the APA and especially his contact with the Great Ormond Street team of David Hatch and Ted Sumner was instrumental in the successful move of paediatric cardiac surgery from the adult cardiothoracic centre in Gothenburg to the paediatric hospital. I know that Krister is very grateful for the very active support of Swedish paediatric anaesthesia by the APA through the years.

Finally, Krister has always pursued his tireless effort to promote paediatric anaesthesia and intensive care without any search for the limelight or academic titles or honours. However, despite this almost shy streak of character we cannot refrain from awarding him the APA honorary membership today.