Certainly, nobody during the autumn of 1990, when the 1^st Congress of Anesthesiology & Intensive Medicine was first inaugurated, had any idea of the impact and the influence this new institution would gain in the years to come. This very first congress was under the organizational presidency of Dr. Nikos Balamoutsos, respectable teacher and skillful director in the field.

But this was not a surprise; Thessaloniki had already experienced pioneering in Anesthesiology. Dr. Spyros Makris (1926-1978) was the first ever Professor of Anesthesiology in Greece (1974) at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He wrote the very first textbooks of Anesthesiology in Greek and published more than one hundred papers, in Science, Anaesthesia and Analgesia, and other journals. This is the reason why during the opening ceremony, the honorary lecture has his name and is assigned to an academic with a broader scientific flair, normally from the local medical community.