Syed Anjum Khan, MD, FRCP, FCCM, is a Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato, Minnesota, USA, the community practice of Mayo Clinic. She became a member of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) in 2005. Her clinical interests include improving quality of life after ICU survival, collaborative practice model, family support, workforce development, quality, and safe care. Her hobbies include gardening, travelling, and writing poetry. Learn more about Dr. Khan and her love for critical care.
What do you love about SCCM membership?
I joined SCCM seeking knowledge, but I stayed because I found an interprofessional community committed to something larger than itself: the profound work of changing lives one patient, one learner, and one innovation at a time.
SCCM is one of the few professional societies where multidisciplinary collaboration is central to the culture, instead of an afterthought. This aligns closely with my values. It allows members to shape the future of critical care rather than simply practice within it. SCCM provides a structured environment where experienced clinicians can help develop the next generation of critical care leaders, researchers, and educators. It brings together individuals who believe that critical care can be safer, more humane, evidence based, and collaborative. Professional societies are often most valuable not for conferences or journals, but for the relationships formed among people pursuing similar goals.
SCCM membership represents more than professional affiliation; it is a mechanism for extending influence from a single ICU to the broader global critical care community.
Why do you love being in critical care?
I love critical care because this is where medicine becomes a profound act of service. We are invited into the most vulnerable chapters of human life, entrusted with hope when hope feels distant, and given the privilege of helping to write a different ending. Every new day, we are at the crossroads of uncertainty and possibility. What keeps me here is not the technology or the complexity, but the quiet miracle of seeing life reclaim its voice after being nearly lost. Every life saved is a celebration, and every passing with dignity a triumph of human compassion.
What are the top advances in critical care since you started your career?
Since I began my career in critical care, the field has evolved dramatically. One of the most important advances has been the development of multiprofessional teams, in which physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, dietitians, rehabilitation specialists, and many others work together to provide coordinated, evidence-based care.
Another major change has been the shift toward patient- and family-centered care. Families are recognized as essential partners in decision-making, communication, and recovery, leading to a more compassionate and integrated approach to critical illness.
Advances in technology, monitoring, and evidence-based protocols have also made life-saving therapies such as mechanical ventilation and vasopressor support significantly safer. At the same time, we have become much more proactive in preventing complications of critical illness. Strategies to reduce delirium, ICU acquired weakness, including sedation holiday, lighter sedation, delirium prevention bundles, and early mobility programs, have become standard components of high-quality ICU care.
Perhaps the most meaningful change is how we define success. Early in my career, survival from critical illness was often the primary goal. Today, we recognize that survival alone is not enough. We focus on helping patients regain physical, cognitive, and emotional well-being, with the goal of returning them to meaningful and productive lives after critical illness.
This evolution reflects a broader transformation in critical care from simply keeping patients alive to helping them live well after recovery.
What industry trends excite you about the future?
I am excited about digital innovation possibilities.
How did you get into critical care?
When I was an internal medicine resident in Hawaii, I did not plan to pursue critical care. I had three young children, and my husband was also a physician in training. I was trying to balance family responsibilities with a demanding career and was not actively seeking a path into one of medicine's most intense specialties.
What changed my thinking was witnessing the impact that exceptional critical care teams could have on patients and families. I saw how state-of-the-art medicine, when combined with genuine empathy and human connection, could transform some of the most frightening moments in people's lives into moments of hope. Equally important, I encountered mentors who demonstrated that excellence and compassion were not competing priorities but inseparable. I decided to pursue a career in critical care with encouragement and unconditional support from my husband.
That experience continues to shape how I mentor others today. I have learned that mentorship is not about telling people which road to take; it is about helping them recognize possibilities they may not yet see in themselves. I try to encourage my mentees to remain curious, embrace uncertainty, and pursue opportunities that align with their purpose rather than their fears.
One of the greatest privileges of my career has been training and practicing at Mayo. Whether through patient care, research, education, or innovation, it has provided me an opportunity to mentor and help others.
What is your biggest professional achievement?
I am co-leading a Mayo Clinic Enterprise team in developing an early mobility tool for ICU patients. Building on this work, I led the development of MARCH Score, an AI-enabled clinical decision support tool designed to assess patient readiness for mobility in the ICU. This work received support through a Mayo Platform Grant and is being developed for broader implementation and will be available for all EMR users, especially EPIC. I have developed a calculator for MARCH score for global implementation. I was always very enthusiastic about early mobility. As early as 2010, we were mobilizing critically ill patients on mechanical ventilators or patients with other critical illnesses.
One of my proudest achievements has been leading the growth and transformation of the community practice of Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato ICU into a regional destination for advanced critical care through interdisciplinary collaboration, quality improvement, and evidence-based practice. Our ICU achieved recognition as one of the highest-performing critical care programs in Minnesota, attaining #1 and #2 statewide rankings in critical care performance, and has maintained those rankings for the last many years. For a community hospital in a state with the best healthcare, this achievement is a huge testament to our outstanding interdisciplinary collaborative care model.
My contributions have been recognized through multiple Mayo Clinic Health System awards for compassion, clinical excellence, research, mentorship, and quality. Education and professional development are central to my mission. I serve as a Fundamental Critical Care Support course Director and Faculty member. I am also an Emergency Neurological Life Support trainer and have participated in national and international educational initiatives aimed at strengthening critical care knowledge and multidisciplinary team performance.
As an academic physician, I have authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications, over 20 book chapters, edited three medical textbooks, and mentored numerous faculty members, residents, fellows, and students.
My heart has always belonged to providing the best possible compassionate care to my patients and developing the future workforce to strive for excellence in compassionate clinical care, education, and research. I never set out to become a researcher; I was drawn primarily to caring for critically ill patients, providing support for their families, guiding my team, and teaching others to do the same. Then COVID-19 arrived and changed the course of medicine and my own journey. Faced with a virus that the world barely understood, we learned alongside our patients and team. Every admission became a lesson, every success a source of hope, and every setback a call to learn more. What we discovered at the bedside, we shared through research. Together with colleagues, we published our experiences and observations so that others could benefit from those lessons. In a time when knowledge was scarce, but questions were endless, research became another form of patient care, allowing us to contribute to the global critical care community's understanding of this devastating disease.
During that period, I also found myself turning back to poetry, which I had given up to process the uncertainty, fear, resilience, and humanity that surrounded us. I authored a poem entitled “Corona,” reflecting on the shared struggle of patients, families, and healthcare workers around the world. The poem reminded me that while science guides our decisions, compassion sustains our purpose. Just as we shared our research findings with the global critical care family, the poem was my attempt to share the emotional experience of living through a moment that transformed medicine and touched every corner of humanity, it provided hope. Looking back, COVID did not pull me away from my passion for patient care and education but instead expanded it. COVID taught me that caring, teaching, research, and writing are all different expressions of the same calling: to serve others and leave the world a little better informed, a little more compassionate, and a little more hopeful than before.
The most rewarding aspect of my work is witnessing patients overcome critical illness and return to meaningful lives. Whether through bedside care, quality improvement, research, mentorship, or innovation, my goal is to create lasting positive changes for the patients, families, workforce, and communities we serve. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to a profession that allows me to combine compassion, discovery, and service in pursuit of better outcomes for the world.
What advice do you have for those starting their critical care careers?
Do not limit your dreams to what seems possible today. Opportunities may appear unexpectedly, and some ideas may seem too ambitious at first. Pursue them anyway. You should be defined not by the path you planned, but by the lives you touch, the people you inspire, and the courage you show in exploring what is possible. Knowledge may save a life, but compassion will change a life forever.
What do you see as the most challenging issue facing critical care?
Our greatest challenge is the abundant digital information, which we must handle with wisdom and use that knowledge with humility and compassion to develop skills. The future demands us to embrace extraordinary advances in technology while becoming even more human. Our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity will be to ensure that innovation expands not only what we can do for patients, but also how deeply we care for them with empathy.
What do you believe to be the top benefit of SCCM membership?
The SCCM Connect Member Forum
Connect with @Syed Anjum Khan on SCCM Connect!