EACTS NEWS
Volkmar Falk Vice-President Volkmar Falk is the Medical Director and Director of the Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery of the German Heart Center Charité, Berlin and Professor for Translational Cardiovascular Technologies at the ETH, Zurich. He has held a number of different positions in EACTS including, most recently, as Chair of the New Technology Task Force. Here, Volkmar sets out his goals as the new Vice-President of EACTS. EACTS is a very important organisation to me. I gave my first international presentation at an EACTS Annual Meeting over 30 years ago. It was a fairly quiet session held in a small room at the end of the programme, but this presentation not only provided a great platform to develop my career in cardiothoracic surgery but also stimulated my interest in EACTS as a professional “home base”. I am grateful for the many opportunities I had to work with EACTS, which include serving on EACTS Council for many years and leading Techno-College, which has developed a fantastic reputation as a key element and driver of the Annual Meeting programme. Becoming Vice-President of EACTS is certainly a highlight of my career and I look forward to the responsibilities of the role. It’s not just about representing the Association but also driving forward our mission and goals to serve the interests of our members in the best way possible. Staying ahead of trends In my view there are some megatrends facing the cardiothoracic community that we must consider as an Association.
The shortage of qualified personnel will dramatically impact the way we do medicine on various levels. We have to adapt in order to address the massive demographic and cultural change ahead of us and provide an attractive working environment for our staff that can compete with other disciplines and professions. Digital health is also changing the way we work and there is an opportunity for cardiothoracic surgery and EACTS to lead the way in this area. As part of this we must understand the principles of the digital revolution and how we integrate decision support systems into our daily practice. We have to focus on value based care and apply digital tools to ensure we capture outcomes that really matter to our patients along the patient journey. An ambitious agenda EACTS already has strong bonds with surgical sister organisations such as the STS and AATS that shape the way we perform cardiothoracic surgery. Equally important is EACTS’ collaboration with Cardiology Societies, in particular the ESC. I strongly believe that we can only improve and advance cardiovascular care jointly with our fellow cardiologists. I would therefore like to explore how we can further strengthen our joint efforts to create future Guidelines together. Our partnerships with industry are also very important. We must continue to build these relationships to maintain access to innovation for the benefit of our patients. Therefore, EACTS must engage continuously on critical issues such as the MDR, making it clear that EACTS has a strong voice. We have a fantastic education programme and I am very grateful and thankful to the many volunteers who give their time and share their experience to develop and improve our Academy courses. We have to continue to lead the way in teaching and education. With this in mind, we must take advantage of all the available options in the digital age and explore new and more interactive formats. Together, there is much we can achieve, and I look forward to playing an important role in the evolution of EACTS.
NEW OFFICERS AND COUNCILLORS We also welcome Florian Schoenhoff to EACTS’ Council, elected as Chair of the Vascular Disease Domain during the EACTS General Assembly at the Annual Meeting. In addition, Joe Bavaria was also elected as Treasurer, having previously served on the Council as International Councillor.
Florian Schoenhoff The domains are right at the core of what makes EACTS so special, so it is a great privilege to be nominated to become Chair of the Vascular Disease Domain. The domains consist of active surgeons striving for excellence in patient care while at the same time advancing the field. The domains provide important educational activities to train the next generation of surgeons and help to keep surgeons already in practice ahead of new developments in the field.
While the vascular domain will continue its efforts on education, a focus of my tenure will be to help aortic surgeons create the evidence that is needed to continue our mission. I look forward to working with a group of diverse domain members, all accomplished surgeons with various backgrounds in open and endovascular aortic surgery, to advance the field and serve the Association and its members.
Join our task forces Be part of one of the Vascular Disease Domain’s associated task forces and play an instrumental role in shaping the future of cardiothoracic surgery. We have vacancies on the Heritable Thoracic Aortic Disease, Aortic Dissection, Cerebral and Visceral Protection and Endovascular Aortic Repair task forces for EACTS members. Apply here. More information can be found here.
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