Congenital Heart Disease Domain Update

It is a great honour to be elected as the Chair of the Congenital Heart Disease Domain. The Domain Chairs are important pillars of our organisation and they carry a heavy responsibility not only for the day-to-day management of the Domain activities but also in particular for future prospects. In this regard I would like to thank the Council and our members for their confidence.

One of the main goals of the Congenital Domain, and of EACTS, is education. EACTS provides the ideal environment for education and training of surgeons throughout their career. I would like to focus on the level one courses. The aim is to develop and implement a structured curriculum working alongside the education committee and the residents committee to allow residents to successfully graduate from the European Board Exam.working alongside the education committee and the residents committee to allow residents to successfully graduate from the European Board Exam.

The second goal of the Domain is inclusion. The EACTS Annual Meeting is the largest meeting in our field, attracting participants from all over the world. I would like to give a voice to our colleagues in countries with lower standards in congenital heart surgery and provide assurance that EACTS is at their side - not only scientifically but also in their challenging daily practice.

And one important goal is quality control. It is self-evident that we must know the results of what we are doing. I think with a joint effort, EACTS and other organisations that run databases in the field of congenital heart disease that provide the best preconditions for comparing outcomes.

We will also provide a session on “How to make a film” which may be of interest beyond the congenital community. Personally, I am most looking forward to our session on “New technologies”. We will see exciting new achievements that most of us have never seen before that have game-changing potential.

We have some great focus sessions planned for this year’s Annual Meeting, which will cover areas such as new developments for the management of cyanotic new-borns. This is of great interest because there is again a shift from surgery to intervention with so far, an unknown impact on outcome. As surgeons we must keep an eye on that. Other planned topics, that have not been included in the programme for a number of years include ‘late presentation’, ‘pulmonary vein surgery’ and ‘imaging’, which promises insights into fascinating new technology.