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HONOLULU -- Promotions for television programming often tout story lines as "ripped from the headlines," but organizers of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) annual congress could borrow the phrase for the 2017 meeting.

Multiple presentations have a topical timeliness that resonates beyond the halls of the Hawaii Convention Center, where the SCCM congress begins tomorrow and continues through next Wednesday.

During a late-breaking science session Monday, a panel will address physician-assisted suicide, including pro/con presentations by , of New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University, and , of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. The 90-minute session will be included in a series of live broadcasts from the meeting, bringing the program to healthcare professionals unable to attend the meeting, said SCCM program co-chair , of Queen's Medical Center and the University of Hawaii.

Content from the session -- "Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Intensive Care Unit: A dialog on core ethical issues" -- will be published simultaneously in the SCCM journal Critical Care Medicine.

Also on Monday, congress participants will have an opportunity to learn more about a real-life episode of data breech during a session called "Electronic Terrorism: Holding the Electronic Medical Record for Ransom." A panel of speakers will discuss hospital data security and tools needed to maintain patient privacy in an era when data encryption has become necessary, said Chang. Participants will include the chief information officer at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in California, where early last year hackers gained access to the medical center EMR system and held patient records until receiving a ransom payment.

On Tuesday, yet another topical presentation will address health care providers' role in reacting to acts of terrorism: "Medical Response to an Active Shooter Event."

"Given the recent tragedies internationally, where mass-casualty situations have arisen, this will be a very interesting presentation during our 'Hot Topics and Late-Breaking Science' session," said Chang. "Speakers will discuss how to rapidly distribute critical care services in response to a surge event with multiple casualties."

Many other sessions and presentations at the congress address topics that are at the forefront of critical care medicine. Precongress education and training programs on Saturday include an Adult Multidisciplinary ICU Simulation Boot camp, Advances in Veterinary Critical Care, Current Concepts in Adult and Pediatric Critical Care, and ECMO Management Workshop.

A series of point-counter-point sessions will address several timely and controversial issues in critical care medicine: Do We Extubate Too Early?; Extraordinary Measures at the End of Life: Withdrawing Therapy in the Age of ECMO; and How Dead Is Dead? The Intersection of Declaring Death, Technology.

Among keynote addresses, the Peter Safar Memorial Lecture will be presented by , of the University of Utah. Her topic -- Fallen: A transdisciplinary tale of disturbance and recovery -- highlights concepts of the SCCM Thrive Grant, which supports research aimed a improving patient and family support after critical illness.

The SCCM/European Society for Intensive Care Medicine Joint Session will focus on an issue of worldwide significance: international guidelines for the management of sepsis and septic shock in adults.

The scientific program will include results of several major clinical trials, said Chang. More than 2,000 abstracts were accepted for this year's congress, a substantial increase from the 1,313 abstracts presented at the 2016 congress. Notable trial results include a study of pediatric glycemic control in the ICU, hypothermia after cardiac arrest in pediatric patients, a prospective multicenter study of readmissions, and study evaluating the prognostic accuracy of different sepsis scores.

The Critical Crosstalk series on Monday and Tuesday, moderated by members of the SCCM In-Training Session, will feature debates on several contemporary issue by two expert panelists. Topics for 2017 include eICU: Here to Stay or Run Away; An ICU Is Only as Good as Its Team Members; and Social Media in the ICU.

Total attendance at this year's SCCM congress will exceed 6,000, including 5,000 critical care medicine professionals, said Chang. The theme for the congress borrows from the traditional Hawaiian term for "transference of knowledge": Ka‘a‘ike -- Communication in the ICU by integrating science, technology, and cultural awareness to optimize the education and implementation of best practices among the multidisciplinary care team, including the patients, family, and the public.

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