ERS Presidential Award

Rousos Charalambos

Professor Charis Roussos, MD, PhD, FRCP(C), MRS

Recognising an outstanding contribution to the strengthening of respiratory medicine worldwide.
 Prof. Charis Roussos completed his MD at Athens University and his PhD at McGill University. He trained in Pulmonary and Intensive Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Boston University, McGill University in Montreal and Hopital Universitaire Laennec in Paris. He has served as Head of Intensive Care at the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill and then as Professor and Head of Pulmonology and Intensive Care at Evangelismos and Athens Chest Sotiria Hospitals, Athens University.

Prof. Roussos has served as ERS President and during his mandate he was pivotal in the EU decision to ban smoking-related advertising. Moreover, he was the founder of the European Lung Foundation and its first Chair.

He is considered the father of academic intensive care in Greece and he successfully linked the specialisation to pulmonary medicine. During his career, he has trained more than a hundred young physicians and helped their research projects, in addition to being extremely successful at raising millions in funds for research and for the renovation of an ICU and other hospital units to state-of-the-art standards. He achieved this as the founder of the Thorax Foundation which supported education, research and patient care infrastructures in Greece.

Prof. Roussos' personal research has focused on the understanding of hypercapnic respiratory failure and the function of the thoracic wall and his publications were seminal. His contribution nevertheless is far broader and includes teaching and progressing research and advocacy.

He is a member of the Academy of Athens and its Biomedical Research Foundation, Council member of the Federation of European Academies of Medicine, and Professor Emeritus of Athens and McGill Universities. Furthermore, he has received the titles of scholar and scientist, was awarded the Jonathan Ballon Award in Canada, Professeur Associe at Marseille University, and is a member of the Fleischner Society.

Prof. Roussos was the editor of the three volume textbook The Thorax, co-editor of the Ventilatory Failure textbook and the author of various chapters and articles in leading textbooks and journals, such as Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, Murray & Nadel's Textbook of Respiratory Medicine, Fishman Pulmonary Diseases and Disorders, Principles of Critical Care Medicine, the Handbook of Physiology, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the European Respiratory Journal.