Acute Disease Quality Initiative

In Memoriam: Professor Rinaldo Bellomo (1956-2025)

We are deeply saddened to share the news of the untimely passing of Doctor Rinaldo Bellomo, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne Australia; Honorary Professorial Fellow, Faculty of Medicine, The University of NSW, Sydney, Australia; Honorary Professorial Fellow, The George Institute, Sydney, Australia; Honorary Fellow, Florey Institute of Physiology, Melbourne, Australia.

Professor Rinaldo Bellomo was born in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Son of Renato and Laura (Fantini) Bellomo. He emigrated to Australia in 1980 and received a medical degree from Monash Medical School, Melbourne in 1982. He completed fellowships in nephrology, Prince Henry's Hospital, Melbourne, 1988; fellow in intensive care, Monash Medical Center, Melbourne, 1991; fellow in pulmonary medicine, Monash Medical Center, Melbourne, 1989-1990; and staff specialist in pulmonary medicine, Monash Medical Center, Melbourne, 1992.

Professor Bellomo was a towering figure in the field of critical care medicine and a pioneering founding father of critical care nephrology and ADQI. He has had a profound impact on the intensive care practice around the world and has been named one of the world's most influential scientific minds of our time by Clarivate Analytics since 2014. In 2015, he became the first Australian biomedical researcher to have more than 1,000 papers in Scopus and total lifetime citations of >100,000 and a yearly citation rate over the past 5 years of >9,000. He is the most published and most cited medical researcher in the history of Australian medicine. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Critical Care and Resuscitation.

In 2018, he was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to intensive care medicine as a biomedical scientist and researcher. In 2021, together with Jamie Cooper, he was awarded the GSK Award for Research Excellence (ARE) in recognition of his global leadership and innovative research in critical care medicine that has helped transform approaches to treatment of critically ill patients worldwide. The GSK ARE is one of the most prestigious awards available to the Australian medical research community. Rinaldo was Co-Director of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre. He was a NHMRC Practitioner Fellow and was Foundation Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group (ANZICS-CTG).

As a Critical Care academician, he realized no restrictions on his fields of investigation nor their practical applications. The shear breath of his body of work spans all aspects of acute care medicine including some of the largest patient enrollment clinical trials ever published in critical care medicine, and he also studied the impact of acute care medicine on the survivors of critical illness and society. He was a gentle leader, firm but considerate. For those of us who knew him well, he was deeply thoughtful and with a kind spirit with a dry sense of humor. His delivery was usually housed in soft tones of thoughtful insights.

Rinaldo was devoted to family and his many friends and collaborators around the world. He has mentored scores of trainees in critical care and has profoundly influenced the careers of many more. He is survived by his wife Debrah and his daughter Hilary. He will be missed dearly.