Researcher Profile: Professor Rinaldo Bellomo

SPHPM’s Professor Rinaldo Bellomo recently hit the impressive milestone of having published over one thousand papers. In light of this extraordinary achievement, the SPHPM blog’s newest Researcher Profile reflects on some of Professor Bellomo’s best achievements over his widely expansive career.

Professor Bellomo is currently the Director of Intensive Care Research at Austin Health. Alongside this, he is the Co-Director of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre (ANZIC-RC). He is also a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, an Honorary Professor at Monash University, an Honorary Professorial Fellow at both the University of Sydney and The George Institute and an Honorary Principal Research Fellow at the Howard Florey Institute.

Professor Bellomo completed his clinical years at the Monash Medical School and has worked across the globe, including stints at the Pittsburgh University Medical Center and the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. He has received 80 grants and awards, including a current NHMRC Practioner Fellowship (2013-2018) for $260,000. Professor Bellomo regularly travels globally for various conferences, having spoken at 170 events as of May 2015.

Professor Bellomo has been cited over 78,000 times, with some papers being cited over 1,000 times alone. These figures reveal the depth of his knowledge and experience, with a portfolio of publications that cover a vast range of fields, including mortality in intensive care unit (ICU) patients, acute kidney injury and treatments for critically ill patients. One notable article, published in 2013 is particularly striking; the avoidable death of a boy and the relentless pursuit for evidence. The paper discusses an event in Professor Bellomo’s career, where a young twelve year old boy died in ICU after being prescribed dialysis treatment, a treatment against Professor Bellomo’s original treatment of choice. The paper is as saddening as it is uplifting, illuminating Professor Bellomo’s commitment to bettering the life of others through his work and the journey he has so far taken.

“However, as I approach my own death, whatever I do, wherever I speak, whatever research project I work on, whatever paper I write, I still remember the young boy who needed CRRT, got dialysis instead, and died,” Professor Bellomo said in his publication.

This is one of the several publications that Professor Bellomo has published in the field of intensive care. His dedication and efforts to improve quality of life and treatment is present in both his work as a clinician and his academic achievements. Professor Bellomo has written over 150 book chapters and edited 13 books about intensive care. He is currently the editor of the Critical Care and Resuscitation Journal. He has been a part of numerous large scale randomised control trials, which have enrolled over 20,000 ICU patients.

Just last year, Thomson Reuters named Professor Bellomo as one of the world’s most influential scientific minds. SPHPM congratulates Professor Bellomo on his achievements to date and we look forward to following his future work, research and achievements in the field of ICU treatment.