Professor Bruce Biccard

Professor Biccard is a specialist anaesthesiologist who advocates for equity and safe surgery and anaesthesia in Africa. His research focuses on decreasing postoperative failure to rescue; decreasing caesarean haemorrhage; decreasing cardiovascular complications; and understanding critical illness.

He studied medicine at the University of Cape Town and completed his PhD in 2010. He is a full professor and the Second Chair in the Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital. Previously, he was a research associate at the University of Oxford; and principal specialist at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital. He founded the South African Perioperative Research Group (SAPORG) and the African Perioperative Research Group (APORG) to address poor patient outcomes following surgery.

Over the last eight years he has published 164 papers in journals such as Lancet; the New England Journal of Medicine; and the Journal of the American Medical Association and has served as editor-in-chief of the Southern African Journal of Anaesthesia and Analgesia. He has supervised 26 Honours and Master’s students and eight Doctoral students.

His achievements include delivering the John Snow Oration to the Royal College of Anaesthetists in London in 2021; receiving a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) grant for a Global Group on Perioperative and Critical Care; and appointment as the Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetic Science at the University of Oxford. He recently published a book Safer Surgery for Africa: Challenges and Solutions.