António Gandra d'Almeida: The Surgeon Who Runs Health Systems Like a Trauma Team

Most health-system leaders come up through administration. António Gandra d'Almeida came up through the emergency department, the medical helicopter and the disaster zone. A consultant general surgeon, emergency medicine specialist and Lieutenant-Colonel in the Portuguese Army Medical Corps, he has spent nearly two decades treating health services the way a trauma team treats a patient: as one system, where every part has to work at once. That approach has earned him a nomination for Leader of the Year at the TPC Awards 2026.

From the front line to the national level

Gandra d'Almeida has worked as a surgeon and emergency physician within Portugal's National Health Service since 2008. For fifteen years he also served as an advanced prehospital physician on rapid-response vehicles and emergency medical helicopters, and as a medical regulator in the national emergency coordination centre.

His leadership roles grew out of that clinical base. He served on the executive board of the Coimbra local health unit, then led the executive board of the Litoral Alentejano local health unit. From 2021 to 2024 he directed the Northern Branch of INEM, Portugal's National Institute of Medical Emergency, with responsibility spanning clinical operations, finance, logistics and staffing.

In 2024 he was appointed Executive Director of Portugal's National Health Service, a role he held into 2025, working across access, network capacity, workforce and public accountability. In the same year he served as President of the Health Emergency Planning Commission and commanded the Army's Agrupamento Sanitário, a deployable medical unit with surgical, diagnostic, inpatient and protected-evacuation capability.

Leadership under pressure

His record outside Portugal is defined by crises. In 2019 he led the medical support group in Portugal's relief operation after Cyclone Idai in Mozambique. In 2023 he headed the INEM medical team in Portugal's national response force after the earthquakes in Türkiye, leadership for which he received formal commendations.

The method he describes is consistent across those settings: align clinical priorities, people, information, transport and partner organisations; test readiness under pressure; and turn the lessons into standards and locally trained faculty.

Teaching the world's responders

That last step has become a major part of his work. Gandra d'Almeida is an Ambassador of the World Federation of Intensive and Critical Care and an international faculty member and course director for programmes including those of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Trauma Course. In the past two years alone he has delivered or directed training in Portugal, Türkiye, Kuwait, Jordan, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Sri Lanka and the UAE, often adapted for limited-resource and austere settings.

He has co-edited Springer Nature volumes on hyperbaric and high-altitude medicine, and in 2026 co-authored peer-reviewed work in Critical Care on the management of terrorist attacks and on austere and tactical medicine.

Recognition

In 2026 he received the Society of Critical Care Medicine's Distinguished Service Award, following its Safar Global Partner Award in 2024 and seven SCCM Presidential Citations between 2019 and 2025. In Portugal, his honours include the Gold Medal for Distinguished Services from the Minister of National Defence and the Medal of the Portuguese Order of Merit.

Few leaders can speak with equal authority in a ministry meeting, an operating theatre and a disaster field hospital. That range is the substance of his nomination.

António Gandra d'Almeida is a nominee in the Leader of the Year category of the TPC Awards 2026. Details are as provided in the nomination submission. No endorsement by any employer or public body is implied.