British physician Dr. Alan Gilston provided the strength and vision for the birth of our global organization after the 1st World Congress of Intensive Care Medicine in London in 1974. At the following World Congress in Paris in 1977 the first constitution was adopted by the General Assembly delegates and the organism was officially formed, joining up National Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine from the world and being his first president a great Mexican leader in the field, Dr. Alberto Villazón-Sahagún from 1981 to 1985.

Despite this, our country has never hosted a World Congress and this perhaps explains that it is poorly known in general in our professional environment, although one of the benefits of being credentialed in the COMMEC (Mexican College of Critical Care Medicine, formerly known as AMMCTI), is precisely belonging to this international organization.

Leading international intensivists have been part of the select group of presidents of the World Federation in the past, Alan Gilston from the UK (1985-1989), Peter Suter from Switzerland (1989-1993), Malcolm Fisher from Australia (1993-1997), Luciano Gattinoni from Italy (1997-2001), Philip Lumb from the USA (2001-2005), José Besso from Venezuela (2005-2009), Edgar Jiménez from the USA (2009-2013), Jean-Louis Vincent from Belgium (2013-2017), our present President Jannice Zimmerman from the USA (2017-2021), and our President-elect Gene Yong Sung (2021-2025).

One of the WFICC objectives is to advance knowledge in Critical Care worlwide, promoting the highest standards of this medical discipline for all humankind without discrimination.

The government and guideline of the WFICC is carried out by the Council that renews half of its members every two years during the General Assemblies, so that currently the term of office of the Council members is no longer eight years, but of four. In the past, three distinguished former COMMEC presidents have been elected as part of the Council: Dr. Luis Ize Lamache (1989-1997), Dr. Guillermo Domínguez Cherit (1997-2005) and Dr. Guillermo Castorena (2009-2017). Recently at the Melbourne 14th World Congress I had the honor of being elected as Council on October 15th 2019, (period from 2019 to 2023), thus continuing the tradition of participation and international cooperation of our College.

The new Council with multicontinental representation that increase the diversity of leaders of the organization was integrated as follows: Janice Zimmerman, President (USA), Elisa Estensorro (Argentina), Assem Abdel Razek (Egypt), Kapil Zirpe (India), Ignacio Martin-Loeches (Ireland), Chae-Man Lim (Korea), Gene Sung (Neurocritical Care), Obashina Ogunbiyi (Nigeria), Shigeki Fujitani (Japan), Jorge Hidalgo (Belize), Fernando Suparregui-Dias (Brazil), Ghong JenYu (Taiwan), Mary White (Australia), Ruth Kleinpell (WFFCCN) and José J. Elizalde (Mexico).

Recently, the WFICC has been renovated including changes in its constitution, and a new name from World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine to simply World Federation of Intensive and Critical Care; the introduction of the first International Rising Star awards for best poster and oral presentations targeted at young intensivists from low and middle-income countries; continuing with the implementation of a modernisation agenda, planning changes for the legal WFICC status as a not-for-profit organisation and the transfer of the administrative functions from London to Belgium, updating policies and procedures and creating the new Office of President-Elect to bring greater consistency and continuity in the leadership of the organisation; establishing a process for the submission and evaluation of strategic projects to further its mission; organizing the Council into committees to work more efficiently; and building on its commitment to foster diversity and gender equity across related activities.

The updated WFICC logo captures the essential attributes and values of a global, inclusive and increasingly diverse organisation with a mission founded on encouraging collaboration and cooperation between all those involved in the delivery of intensive and critical care beyond any border.

Actually the WFICC has a membership of over 80 different National Societies with a combined individual membership of over 80,000 intensive and critical care practitioners worlwide, being the last membership applications approved and ratified from the societies of Namibia, Kenya and Taiwan.

A goal of different COMMEC boards has been to bring that important world event to our country and it is on this occasion that once it has been tried with unfavorable results for Mexico, all related to the tremendous competition and excellent proposals of friendly nations with enthusiastic groups of intensivists organized within their national societies, which highlights the global character and nature of our specialty and Federation.

The 17th World Congress in 2025 will be held in Delhi, India, but before the 15th version will be held in Vancouver, Canada in 2021 and the 16th in Istanbul, Turkey in 2023.

Surely, the COMMEC will continue working and trying harder with perseverance to obtain the important distinction of being designated host of a WFICC World Congress in a near future, to continue contributing to the construction of a better Critical Care Medicine for the benefit of all humanity.

We call friendly to all our members and readers to actively participate in all the activities of the COMMEC and WFICC; see you next November in Merida, Mexico and in 2021 in Vancouver, Canada.