Dear friends,
This is a special moment in the evolution of our Society, which beyond a change of authorities, is just a transition of authorities while continuing with a common goal on a designed plan, based on education, scientific knowledge and friendship. The Society places a particular emphasis on the advances in the diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmia and ischemia, as well as new developments in Holter monitoring, 12‐lead ECG, exercise ECG, heart rate variability, signal averaging, dispersion of repolarization, and T‐wave alternans. More recently, the usefulness and evaluation of cardiac resynchronization therapy and implantable cardioverter defibrillator were included in our scope.
It is my pleasure to inform you that the Board of Trustees elected new International Society for Holter and Noninvasive Electrocardiology, Inc (ISHNE) officers for the term July 1st, 2007–June 30th, 2009:
President Elect: Peter Stone (USA)
Past President: Wojciech Zareba (USA)
Vice‐President: Marek Malik (UK)
Secretary: Federico Lombardi (Italy)
Treasurer: Jonathan Steinberg (USA)
There were many new activities in the past few months, the most important was our biannual meeting in Athens, Greece and I want to congratulate Drs. Polichronis Dilaveris and Wojciech Zareba for their outstanding job with the scientific and organizational structure of the program. There were over 30 educational sessions and over 100 lectures given by 70 faculty members representing expertise in every possible area of electrocardiology. The congress created an excellent forum discussing novel methods of risk stratification utilizing ECG methodology, updating with recent developments regarding patient management in case of atrial fibrillation, heart failure, and dilated cardiomyopathy. Three intensive days of sessions contributed to the excellent exchange of ideas and interaction of numerous participants. We are indebted to faculty members for their devotion to the scientific and educational mission of the society and it is our pleasure to invite you to the XIII Biannual Congress that will be held in Yokohama, Japan, 2009.
Scientific awards for Senior and Junior investigators were presented in Athens to Branco Mautner from Argentina and Yunlong Xia, from China, respectively.
The Society has been a pioneer in conducting Virtual activities, and developing a great part of its educational activities through the Internet. The last World Wide Internet Symposium was the Second Atrial Fibrillation Symposium, and John Camm was its Honorary President. The Symposium attracted more than 15,000 registrants from all over the world and was translated into Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish, and some lectures also into French. Now, we are preparing three new Symposiums: Drug‐induced QT prolongation this October, that will be chaired by W. Zareba; Myocardial Ischemia chaired by A. Bayes de Luna and Peter Stone in January 2008, and the Second Heart Failure Symposium, chaired by A. Moss in April 2008.
Website news: we are introducing the ECG‐Holter of the month, in an area directed by Drs. Guy Fontaine, Paul Levine, Andres Perez Riera, and Rafal Baranowsky; the electronic grand rounds, directed by Jonathan Steinberg with very current topics and renowned faculties. The most important feature of these sections is interaction, and it has a friendly window to send your questions or suggestions.
Finally, I would like to congratulate all the new members of the Board of Trustees, and the new Governors, who will accompany us along this 2‐year period of management, and deeply thank all the members who have already ended their activity in the Board of Trustees and Governors for all the activities performed and their personal efforts. And a special mention to Wojciech Zareba, a President who knew how to encourage all of us who had the pleasure of working with him, with all his enthusiasm and energy, as if it was the first day of activities, and has achieved many accomplishments for the Society.