I am honoured to be taking over from Jules Dussek and would like to thank him on behalf of the Society for all the hard work he has put in as President and indeed Treasurer and Secretary before that. He stepped into the breach left by John Parkers death and therefore unusually never served as Vice President. Despite this, with his previous knowledge of the workings of the Society, he has led us through the last two difficult years with great skill.
Cardiac surgery has been having a difficult time - particularly in the wake of the Bristol affair and we must be seen to put our house in order. Having been leaders in the field with our Annual Register started by Sir Terence English back in 1977 it has been sad to see it criticised as being inaccurate and not validated. For all its failings we are still way ahead of other specialities, in data collection, but must improve still further. The National Adult Cardiac Surgical Database Report 1998, produced by Bruce Keogh is a major step forward and hopefully the remaining 30% of units who did not contribute will soon do so.
In the field of congenital heart surgery, considerable strides have been taken to establish a simple but complete database supported by the CCAD. However, it all depends on the integrity of individual surgeons detailing every operation and its outcome. Help from researchers, computers and so on is essential but it is the will to provide complete National results that is so important.
Although not a thoracic surgeon, I am well aware of the efforts being made to improve training in thoracic surgery. The recent document regarding Thoracic Surgical Training in a Cardiothoracic Programme from the SAC will hopefully go a long way to help. I feel it is important to keep thoracic surgeons within the Society rather than allow the speciality to separate them from us.
I have no illusions that this is a challenging time to be taking over. The spotlight is still on us and clinical governance and the publics increasing tendency to sue must make us tread warily. Out patients best interest must come first and we should welcome the recent proposals of the NSF. The proposal that there should be 750 CABGs/million and a waiting list reduced to 3 months within 10 years seems admirable, if perhaps over optimistic. Currently it is the lack of ITU beds and nurses to staff them which seems to be the main hold up in most units. Unless the Department of Health achieves a major recruitment of nurses it will be difficult to each their targets.
It was encouraging to see the large number of members being put forward for election to the Executive which shows a willingness among members to contribute to the running of the Society. The Standards of Care and Education Subcommittees together with the full Executive meet three times a year. The Programme Committee will meet twice a year and organising a good Annual meeting is certainly one of our main tasks. It was nice to see such a good turn out for the recent Annual Meeting and there was a very high standard of papers. The presenters and moderators are to be congratulated on keeping so well to time in what was a very tight schedule. The standard of discussion was good, but it would be nice to see more trainees and junior consultants joining in.
If members of the Society are unhappy or feel they have useful suggestions to make, please contact me or e-mail other members of the Executive. We will try to do our best for the running of the Society and our profession but cannot do it without your help. In these days of electronic communication, as a recent convert, can I please ask everyone to fill in their details on the CTSNet. If we had an address, telephone number, e-mail address and if possible photograph of all members, it would make it so much easier to communicate.