New initiative
The ESC has launched a project of joint sessions, in close collaboration between the National Societies boards and the vice president for National Societies and Fellowship, Dr. Steen Dalby Kristensen, FESC with the assistance of the ESC membership department.
In this project, which is this year in its pilot phase, the National Society (NS) and the ESC collaborates in setting up a joint session, during the National Society’s annual national congress, usually with focus on one of the recent ESC Clinical Practice Guidelines.
Some NS have already organised sessions jointly with the ESC for several years, and the ESC Guidelines are integrated in such sessions more often than not. However, the formalised organisation is something new and moreover, it allows for a partly financial support from the ESC.
For 2010, it is encouraged that the session is arranged around the topics of Heart Failure or Acute Coronary Syndrome, and that a balanced representation of the organisations is ensured: one chairperson from the NS, one from the ESC and speakers from both parties. When appropriate, the designated Guidelines coordinator in the NS is implicated in the organisation of the session.
STEMI session in Romania
Quite recently a very successful example of a joint session was held during the 48th National Congress of Cardiology of the Romanian Society of Cardiology, which took place 19-22 September 2009 in Sinaia.
In collaboration with Dr Kristensen, the Romanian NS board had decided on the topic of STEMI Guidelines and their implementation (*). The session was chaired by Dr Steen D. Kristensen and the Romanian NS president Dr Dan Deleanu, FESC.
The ESC vice president spoke first in English on the recent development in STEMI treatment, where after the Romanian NS president presented the current situation of ACS treatment in Romania, in Romanian. A more general presentation about the ESC Guidelines was delivered in English by Prof. Alec Vahanian, FESC, Chairperson of the ESC Committee for Practice Guidelines. Former Romanian Society of Cardiology president Prof. Carmen Ginghina, FESC then explained in Romanian the implementation of ESC Guidelines in Romania.
Dr Kristensen reports back from the congress of a very successful joint session which generated several excellent questions from the audience in the panel discussion that followed the presentations. The questions concerned both the ESC Guidelines in general and STEMI therapy and implementation of primary PCI in particular. It was obvious that the ESC Guidelines are known and used by most cardiologists in Romania, but also that there are several obstacles for the implementation of primary angioplasty for acute ST-elevation in the country.
Upcoming sessions in the National Societies
Joint sessions have already been organised and carried out during several national annual congresses, in Iceland, Portugal, Israel, Poland, Denmark, Russia, Slovakia, and Ireland among others.
Joint sessions that are planned or in the process of being so (click on country name to see the details of the national annual congress):
2009:
Finland, Syria, Serbia, Spain, Tunisia, Albania, Italy (SIC)
2010:
Austria
Belgium
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Cyprus,
Egypt
Germany
Israel
Libya
Macedonia F.Y.R.
Norway
Russia
San Marino
Turkey
UK