Dear Members,
I am delighted and humbled to have taken over the role of chair of this working group since the ESC digital summit. I am also pleased to introduce four new members to the nucleus: Paula da Costa Martins, Petra Kleinbongard, Thomas Krieg, Melanie Paillard. Unfortunately, we have to say goodbye to some long-standing members who have contributed to the working group over the past few years: Hans Erik Botker, Jean-Sebastien Hulot, Michael Marber, Rainer Schulz, Peter Ferdinandy, Sandrine Lecour. I would especially like to thank Rainer and Peter who each made extensive contributions to the working group for over 10 years. There is some additional re-organisation on the decks, as Cinzia Perrino is the new vice-chair (and chair-elect), and some nucleus members will remain as non-voting members to work on specific tasks or act as liaison officers, specifically: Joost Sluijter, Sophie Van Linthout and Can Can Gollmann-Tepeköylü.
The previous chair, Rossella Madonna, led the working group through an enormously productive two years, during which the working group published four position papers and consensus documents, and numerous other scientific publications and reviews, with several more in preparation or submitted. I hope to be able to maintain this important rate of scientific contribution. I remain optimistic that it will be possible to continue our traditional biennial scientific meeting together with our friends in the Myocardial Function Working Group with a meeting next year. However, in this challenging time when face-to-face meetings are not possible to organise, we also need to explore new ways to fulfil our mandate of contributing to scientific education in the remit of our working group. One means of achieving this is via short, high-impact webinars with experts on focussed topics. These are incredibly popular with ESC members. Please do keep an eye out for these advertised in the newsletter and website.
As the number of members in our working group continues to rise (by 17% in the past two years, to 638), I sincerely hope you will all find something of value in this membership, and that we will have the opportunity to meet at the next ESC Congress, either in real life, or “in digital”.
On behalf of the Working Group nucleus,
Sean Davidson, Chairperson 2020-2022
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