Dear Colleagues,
It has been indeed my honour to be the President and lead this 64 years old glorious Society for the past year. This august body, which is one of the largest single country's Society in the world, represents the vision and dreams of the ‘greats of Indian Cardiology’ who have been its Presidents prior to me. It also represents the aspirations, passion and cardiac excellence of its 3900 members who look upto this Society as not just a cementing force but also its representative for progress of cardiology in this country.
I can only say that both as President-Elect (2010–2011) and President (2011–2012), it was my privilege to have the support of one of the most efficient and passionate General Secretary Dr Santanu Guha and one of the best and most progressive ‘Executive Committee’ with the help of whom we managed to achieve a few milestones.
This year for the first time in the history of CSI, three ‘guidelines’ are being brought out. These guidelines covering ‘CSI- Practice Guidelines for Angiography in Patients with Renal Dysfunction’, ‘CSI/IHRS Practice Guidelines on Follow-Up of Patients with Permanent Pacemakers’ and ‘CSI Consensus Statement on Prosthetic Valve Follow Up’ are very relevant to our daily practice for every cardiologist. They have been well re-searched, thoroughly discussed and consensus reached among the ‘Task Force Members’ who are national thought leaders in the specific areas covered. The ‘Pacemaker Guidelines’ have also been discussed by the leaders of ‘Indian Heart Rhythm Society’ who have put their recommendations and hence for the first time we have ‘joint guidelines’ of Cardiological Society of India and Indian Heart Rhythm Society. These guidelines will help to optimize and refine our practice to ‘evidence based outcome oriented’ cardiology and benefit both physicians and patients.
On the international front we strengthened and formalized our partnership with the leading Cardiology Societies of the world. A formal partnership agreement was put into existence with the American College of Cardiology, European Society of Cardiology, European Association of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (EAPCI)-EuroPCR and these Societies are being formally represented at our 64th Annual Scientific Meeting in Delhi this year through their leadership and holding devoted sessions to benefit our attendees. On reciprocity the CSI will also be represented by its leaders at specific symposia at the ACC & ESC Scientific Sessions. There will also be reciprocal benefits to be gained by members attending the mailings. These initial partnerships strengthen over time to create Traveling Fellowships, Research Scholarship, Quality Based Registries and Joint Trials. We are excited that we have been able to start some ‘beautiful partnership’ whose fruits we look forward to in times to come. We thank the leaders of ACC namely Dr William Zoghbi, Dr John Gordon Harold, Dr Jagat Narula and Dr Dipti Itchhaporia as well as leaders of ESC/EAPCI namely Prof. Michel Komajda, Prof. Panos Vardas, Prof. Fausto Pinto, Dr Jean Fajadet, who have been equally passionate about sharing this vision of benefitting Science and Cardiology across geographical boundaries.
Another unique milestone has been our new partnership with Society of Cardiac CT (SCCT) of USA. CT Coronary Angiography has proliferated and more and more machines are getting implanted every day not just in metros but in smaller cities. Imparting appropriate expertise, training and certification to cardiologists/radiologists for performing and reading CT angiograms is a very important responsibility towards patient care. We are therefore starting a CT Angiography certificate course in collaboration with SCCT on the lines of courses being run in USA and Europe. The first such course is going to be held in January and four such courses of Level (II) and a course of Level (III) (create the trainers) will occur over the next year with key leaders of SCCT being the training faculty. I believe that in creating this very important course which would create a ‘win win for all’ in terms of expertise, education, quality and credibility: CSI has taken a unique leadership position which would be appreciated by medical fraternity for a long time.
On the occasion of the World Heart Day 2012, the CSI took a giant leap in creating awareness about Prevention of Heart Disease through a Heart Fest 2012 held in Delhi; this activity is already presented in this issue of the journal; a partnership between the Delhi Govt. and CSI is being created to bring in policies for prevention of Heart Disease. The CSI also created a ‘Guinness Record’ for the World's largest balloon cluster (25,000 red heart shaped balloons), thus helping to create awareness about heart disease (see photos in this issue).
This year the Indian Heart Journal has taken on a new look under the enthusiastic and visionary guidance of our New Editor, Dr Sarat Chandra. The success of the Indian Heart Journal through its past editors has been used by Dr Sarat Chandra to build a launching platform for fresh ideas, fresh format & contain a fresh website and e-journal. It will be an exciting next five years for the ‘Indian Heart Journal’ and an extremely beneficial time for its readers. So, I encourage all to subscribe to the journal and update the addresses with the CSI office, so that you can receive this extremely useful scientific publication regularly.
All the Conveners of the various sub-councils of the CSI have been active and involved and are expected to bring out ‘patient information booklets’ about various cardiovascular diseases in the coming year.
The year has passed by fast! To some extent, I have remorse that a lot more could have been achieved in the one year allotted to me and as I pass on the baton to incoming President Dr P K Deb, I leave with satisfaction that he would take our prestigious Society to greater heights.
I visualize our Society in coming times to be the ‘voice’ of all Cardiologists of the country, the ‘educator and leaders’ for the public & heart disease sufferers, a ‘partner and guide’ to policy makers, a ‘mentor and inspiration’ to our young Cardiologists. It is the responsibility of the CSI to bring out the best from the Cardiologists of today and be the incubator to create the “Cardiologists of Tomorrow”. Let us all work together for this belief to continue to raise the CSI to greater and greater glorious heights.