Prof Van Zundert’s key accountabilities include professional clinical expertise in anaesthesia, intensive care, relief, expertise in regional anaesthesia and airway management. He has been blessed with being an academic with current professorial appointments at The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and Udayana University in Indonesia, and in the past at the Universities of Ghent (Belgium), Maastricht and Brabant Medical School (The Netherlands), Victoria University (Melbourne) and Honorary Professorships at Harvard, Yale and Toronto Universities, which laid fundaments for his global academic network.

Professor Van Zundert excelled within the realm of clinical anaesthesia practice and is considered one of ten top experts in the world in airway management. He was the first to publish on supraglottic airway devices (Soft Seal®; LMA-Supreme®; LMA-Protector® and SafeLM® VLMS). The latter is the ultimate solution to avoid malpositioning of supraglottic airway devices. Furthermore, he made several contributions to new techniques for safer airway management (videolaryngoscopy, combined intubation technique, vision-guided insertion techniques and proposed the third-generation supraglottic airway devices). The epidural formula he described is now used worldwide as the standard algorithm in obstetrics (childbirth), gynaecology and surgery (intra-and postoperative pain relief). He was the first to describe the anatomy of the thoracic spine and tested the boundaries of regional anaesthesia, confirming successful use of segmental spinal anaesthesia in the thoracic region, offering a successful alternative for the cardiac and respiratory compromised patient undergoing abdominal surgery under general anaesthesia. Current ambitions are to reduce the anaesthetic footprint on climate change, Avoid, reduce, recycle, reuse and segregation of waste management programmes are explored to minimise CO2-footprint by anaesthesia without affecting patient care.

Andre focuses on teaching the anaesthetic community, advocating to avoid wrong-route injections in regional anaesthesia, as they may result in harmful and even fatal consequences. By introducing the new ISO 80369-6 series of standards of connectors, these specifically designed fittings for regional anaesthesia, will help to find a suitable solution to improve safety for patients.

Van Zundert is a quality driven clinician, researcher and teacher and founded the UQ ‘Centre for Excellence and Innovation in Anaesthesia’, an Australian first, based on the big five issues in anaesthesia, teaching, simulation, testing equipment and staff, quality care (through audits and incident reporting) and research. He is a prolific author with some 450 peer-reviewed publications, three major publications and 70 book chapters. He is the Chair of the UQ ‘Burns, Trauma, Critical Care and Research Centre’ and aims to foster research on a wide range of topics. He enjoys supervising PhD-students.

André is currently an active member of the Committee on Safety & Quality (World Society Intravenous Anaesthesia), Council Member of the Research Committee of ANZCA (Australian New Zealand College of Anaesthetists), editorial board member or editor of several anaesthesia journals and Educational Board Member of NYSORA (New York Society of Regional Anaesthesia) working on the NexLevel CME® project, an educational and technology entity providing a personalised and boutique learning experience for medical practitioners utilising a custom-built eLearning platform and a range of propriety cognitive aids, illustrations and animations. In the past, André was privileged to sit on many Boards of Management and Professional Societies (ESA, ESRA) as president, secretary-general or council member. He established the European Diploma in Regional Anaesthesia and Pain Therapy (EDRA), a much-sought-after European Diploma, all with the intent to improve safe and qualitative anaesthesia service.