Over three intense days at the hotel Radisson in the centre of Bergen, the schedule included various main sessions, several satellite symposia, a moderated poster session and an industry exhibition.
“The spring meeting covers advances in cardiology within most major areas” says the president of the NSC, Dr Cecilie Risöe. She continues: “the main take-home messages this year were probably that the educational program for heart failure (heartfailurematters.org) needs funding for a Norwegian edition, and that an initiative towards national consensus for screening of young athletes is wanted.”
The current main goals of the NSC are to re-establish cardiology as a main specialty in Norway, or at least secure educational positions to meet the growing demand of technical expertise (more details here).
An amazingly international contingent of speakers and moderators from Norway, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Monaco, UK, Belgium, USA, Denmark and the Netherlands had come to Bergen for this rather small scale meeting (235 delegates) that also attracted 26 exhibiting industries.
For the first time, the ESC shared a stand with the NSC. This initiative was very positively received by the NSC members present and reinforced the message of automatic ESC membership through the membership of the National Society.
The meeting was opened by the chairperson of the organising committee, Dr Hans Bjørnstad (a former ESC Working Group chairperson in the area of rehabilitation and exercise physiology), and Professor Michal Tendera, Poland, past-president of the ESC. Professor Tendera mentioned that the Bergen congress was the last national congress he would visit in his capacity of ESC board member, as he leaves the board in September. He stressed that he was particularly glad to round off with a visit to the Norwegian Society of Cardiology and praised the high involvement of the Norwegians in ESC activities: high attendance and scientific contribution to the ESC Annual 
Congresses, high membership in ESC Associations and Working Groups and a very high interest in ESC Newsletters, My ESC and the ESC Web Site.
In typical Norwegian manner, the meeting was concluded with a convivial, social lunch outing, open to all delegates, by boat to a quay side restaurant on one of the islands off the coast. The “house orchestra” of the Norwegian society of cardiology entertained with a few tunes from their jazzy repertoire.