Advancing intensive care pharmacy: Meet Professor Cathy McKenzie
Professor Cathy McKenzie is a pharmacist delivering pioneering research in Southampton.
She recently started as Professor of Intensive Care Pharmacy at the University of Southampton.
This is the first full professorial role for a pharmacist in intensive care in the UK. Through this new post, she aims to deliver new advances in pharmacy for patients receiving intensive care.
She is also an Honorary Consultant Pharmacist in Critical Care at University Hospital Southampton (UHS). Her research has been supported by the UHS Research Leaders Programme.
She shares how she got to this point in her career and what she hopes to achieve in the role.
What is intensive care pharmacy?
Intensive care pharmacy is a well-developed career pathway for clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. Those working in this area provide clinical pharmacy care for patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). They ensure pharmacotherapy is safe and effective when our patients are severely unwell.
Intensive care pharmacy involves clinical practice, education, research and leadership. In clinical practice, we attend multi-professional ward rounds and adjust pharmacotherapy for kidney and liver failure. We take medication histories on admission and discharge from ICU. We prescribe, and intervene on clinical colleagues’ prescribing, to ensure safety and optimise medication.
We provide education on pharmacotherapy in intensive care for the patient and the multi-professional team. In addition, we devise evidenced-based guidelines with our colleagues.
We also conduct, collaborate and lead in pharmacotherapy research in intensive care. I have a special interest in the care of patients who are severely agitated and in delirium and need support on how best to manage their pharmacotherapy when they are unwell. I am also interested in novel interventions in sepsis, deprescribing and polypharmacy.
How have you arrived at this point in your career?
I have worked in ICUs for over 30 years. This has given me a wealth of pharmacological knowledge and experience.
My professorial role has been springboarded by a Research Enhancement Award from NIHR Applied Research Collaborative Wessex and a UHS Research Leaders Programme award. These led me to successfully secure an NIHR Senior Clinical Practitioner Award.
The NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre’s Perioperative and Critical Care theme has also provided the perfect environment for my research to thrive.
What do you hope to achieve in this new role over the coming years?
Over the next five years, I would like to lead a multiple site randomised controlled trial into intravenous thiamine for prevention and treatment for delirium in the intensive care unit. I also wish to focus on deprescribing and reducing polypharmacy in the ICU.
I also intend to continue to chair the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) pharmacology and pharmacotherapy section until the end of 2026. This is a new venture for ESICM. I am working with medical, nursing and pharmacy colleagues on a position paper for clinical pharmacy in ICU with ESICM.
I am passionate about engaging pharmacy professionals in research. Pharmacy professionals think they can’t do it, but they really can. I will continue to supervise my post-doctoral, PhD and predoctoral fellows, and critical care and wider pharmacy colleagues, alongside Dr Andy Fox and Dr Emily Smith. And together, we will grow the research culture in pharmacy at UHS.
I will collaborate and partner with my multi-professional colleagues across Southampton. It really is a great place to conduct research for patient benefit.
Finally, I will continue in my role as editor in chief for Critical Illness, an e-book published by Pharmaceutical Press. This is a world-leading resource that seek to ensure dynamic evidenced based prescribing in intensive care.
I would like to thank Professor Michael Grocott, Professor Roxanna Carare, Mr James Allen and Professor Diana Eccles for their support in creating this role for me.