The sudden demise of Iqbal Mustafa, MD in Jakarta on 18 July leaves an aching void in critical care medicine worldwide. His endeavors to propagate scientific understanding and fellowship in Indonesia and Asia over 20 years were without peer. The impact of his soul and substance of his scientific research reached out to intensivists and critical care nurses in all countries, particularly 2,000 million people in countries of the Western Pacific Association of Critical Care Medicine, an organization he served with distinction as Councilor, Treasurer and later President up to 2002.
The consistent message of his unfinished opus was to encourage the evolution of multidisciplinary Critical Care systems in developing countries to provide benefit for the greatest number of recipients at the lowest affordable cost. He envisaged a fundamental role for “Critical Care and Shock” in the dissemination of research to meet the needs of this population and, as the Journal’s second editor-in-chief had gained the support by peer review and secured the operational finance to elevate the Journal to the standards of online submission, achieving referencing in Embase and SIIC with Medline listing as the next target. His convenorship of the annual Indonesian-International Symposium on Shock and Critical Care from 1994 to 2003, in parallel with five consensus conferences on Critical Care for developing countries, on Septic shock, ARDS, Nutritional Support, Infection Control and Hemorrhagic Shock, created awareness of need to bridge the differences in critical care between industrialized and developing countries and brought together intensivists from Asia, America, Europe and Australia, fostering deep lasting friendships in the process and resulting in the spontaneous and simultaneous email lamentations of deep sadness at the news of his death.
At the time of his death the consummate diplomat and quintessential scientist in Iqbal was actively building further links within Asian critical care through multicentre research in head injury metabolism and management, through inter-nation recognition of intensive care training and exchange programs within Asian countries, and supporting the growth of WPACCM to include other Asian countries. The beacon of Indonesian and Asian Critical Care Medicine has dimmed with his passing but the energies that he devoted have secured the foundations to enable the torch to be rekindled for all critically ill and the professionals who serve them.
The deepest condolences of the Western Pacific Association of Critical Care Medicine are extended to Iqbal’s widow Titi and their sons. May his soul rest in eternal peace.
Patrick S.K. Tan
