Patrick Myers

As the new Secretary General of EACTS I would like to thank all of you for being part of this year’s successful Annual Meeting. With your support the EACTS Annual Meeting continues to be not just the largest event for the cardiothoracic community, but also an opportunity for us all to come together, share, discuss and learn.

EACTS has its roots in Europe, but I’m delighted that members and speakers from all over the world as well as from other specialities and professions have joined us in Milan. As cardiothoracic surgeons, we work in multi-disciplinary teams, and I’m so pleased that our Domains and Task Forces truly embraced the importance of multi-disciplinary approaches when they prepared the huge scientific programme on offer here.

Cutting-edge science

It has been fantastic to hear from global leaders in their field and learn more about the cutting-edge science that we can implement in our practice. In yesterday’s Late Breaking Clinical Trials session, we were privileged to have high quality presentations, including the results of a prospective randomised controlled trial. I encourage everyone to attend today’s Late Breaking Clinical Trials session at 12:15, which is an opportunity to hear the preliminary results of a first in human trial which could improve coronary artery bypass grafting.

New initiatives to support our members

I am extremely humbled to be the new EACTS Secretary General. As a longstanding member of the organisation, past secretary of the EBCTS and Chair of the Acquired Cardiac Disease Domain, I know first-hand the influence that EACTS has through our publications, Academy programme, clinical practice guidelines, examinations and the many other facets of work. I want to build on these achievements and explore new ways to deliver value to our members whilst continuing to equip the cardiothoracic community with everything we need to improve outcomes for our patients.

A stronger surgical voice

Assessing the very latest clinical data and evidence in order to develop high quality clinical guidelines on specific procedures and techniques is an important part of our efforts to drive quality improvement in cardiothoracic surgery. However, we need to strengthen the surgical voice by taking a more active and earlier role in how the evidence is developed. At this Annual Meeting we have been able to learn from experts running clinical trials and, given the numbers of submissions we received, we are able to hold two late breaking clinical trials sessions as well. These sessions encourage us all to assess and critically appraise the evidence available to us. Running a clinical trial is a full-time job which requires specific expertise. We want to put the infrastructure in place to support more members gain the necessary skills and knowledge to design and run the clinical trials that will lead to surgical teams delivering even better outcomes for our patients. Other professions do this well and I am keen we do more to support in this area. As such, we are working with the University College London Comprehensive Clinical Trials Unit and other trials units to develop this new service for our members.

Supercharging innovation

Innovation in cardiothoracic surgery is critical as we seek new ways to improve patient outcomes. As surgeons we often have a lot of ideas, but we don’t always know how to turn these ideas into real world applications to use in everyday practice. The Techno-College Innovation Award at the Annual Meeting provides great exposure to innovations, and we want to create more opportunities to help get the most innovative ideas into practice. We’re working with potential funders to get their input on how we can support the best start up ideas as well as creating a network of experts, including industry contacts, that we can harness within EACTS for the benefit of our most innovative members.

Quality improvement

Across all aspects of medicine, quality improvement is primed to make care better for our patients. EACTS has a fantastic quality improvement programme The EUROMACS registry is already considered the standard for Europe. With several countries having mandated reporting data to EUROMACS for any ventricular assist devices. This is a great achievement, but we need to continue to develop our quality improvement databases and take them to the next level, expanding the Adult Cardiac surgery Databases (ACD) and renewing the QUIP committee. Several countries have national databases; we are taking the steps to regroup these into our ACD, to harness big data covering all of Europe. Over the coming months we will be exploring options such as recognising and accrediting those organisations that participate in the Adult Cardiac Database and are achieving outstanding outcomes. devices. This is a great achievement, but we need to continue to develop our quality improvement databases and take them to the next level, expanding the Adult Cardiac surgery Databases (ACD) and renewing the QUIP committee. Several countries have national databases; we are taking the steps to regroup these into our ACD, to harness big data covering all of Europe. Over the coming months we will be exploring options such as recognising and accrediting those organisations that participate in the Adult Cardiac Database and are achieving outstanding outcomes.

Thank you Rafa

Finally, I would like to thank our outgoing Secretary General, Rafa Sádaba, for his wonderful leadership over the past few years, guiding the organisation through the challenge of a global pandemic whilst demonstrating an unwavering commitment to delivering value for our members. He has made a huge contribution to the growing success of the organisation and I am delighted that Rafa will continue as Chair of the Education Committee and as a member of EACTS Council.

We stand on the shoulders of giants, and I look forward to the support and guidance from all of our members in developing your Association further.