About the Canadian Intensive Care Foundation

Over a number of years, it became evident to the ICU community of the need for funds to initiate studies focused on patient-important critical care problems and to fund needed educational events for the critical care community. In 1992 four leaders in critical care in Canada who had access to local funds were brought together from four different cities across Canada to initiate the Friends of the Intensive Care. The four local leaders were Dr. Dean Sandham from Calgary, Dr. Dan Roberts from Winnipeg, Dr. Al Spanier from Montreal, and Dr. John Hewson from Hamilton. Each had found a potential donor to help initiate The Friends of Intensive Care later to become known as the Canadian Intensive Care Foundation (CICF) and was registered under the Canada Corporations Act as a Charity.

The next 15 years saw the CICF grow as a charitable organization focused on raising money for critical care research and education. Roughly 1.5 million dollars was raised, and this money has supported many investigators, and importantly many junior investigators, over the years. Many educational events for critical care nurses and respiratory therapists were also sponsored over the years. The goal of the CICF is to raise money to support critical care research and education in Canada and this goal has never changed.

We are currently revamping the CICF to be the charity of choice for critical care research and education in Canada. The benefits of membership and donation to the CICF are that it allows any person to participate in the important goal of supporting research and education in critical care in Canada.