This third issue of JACC: Case Reports is being finalized immediately after the 2019 ESC Congress. I had the opportunity to meet with many friends and colleagues. It was invigorating to see so many young people with such infectious positive energy. I feel grateful for your positive comments about JACC: Case Reports, and I am proud to be part of the JACC journals family. By reading your clinical cases and viewpoints, I strongly feel that there is a huge potential for JACC: Case Reports. Most importantly, JACC: Case Reports has a role in empowering early career colleagues through the impact of their publications in JACC: Case Reports and their significant role in clinical practice. The similarity between JACC: Case Reports and the 2019 ESC Congress is that we learn from our patients—and from each other as a community—how to make a diagnosis, how to decide a treatment pathway and management, and how to apply clinical guidelines into everyday practice.
In this third issue, we present a mini-focus issue on complications with electrophysiology and devices. Between interesting cases of the mini-focus issue, we present 2 interesting complications with respective editorials on how to avoid the problem. We also have a series of clinical cases and imaging vignettes covering all aspects of cardiology and divided into 3 levels of expertise, for your convenience. In our Fellows-in-Training corner, Dr. Rebecca Hahn and colleagues discuss how interventional imaging has evolved through the years and also how there is an increasing number of women moving into this subspecialty.
In addition, Dr. Purvi Parwani leads an important paper on how social media can promote the discussion of clinical cases, while also uncovering some pitfalls and the dangers of social media. Here, I would like to share my personal view on social media, as I previously served as the ESC social media manager and more recently have overseen social media for JACC: Case Reports with Dr. Rafael Vidal-Perez. In these settings, we have thrived for quality and professionalism, not quantity. We seek guidance, inspiration, and scientific opinion from true key opinion leaders. Thus, I would like to see the term influencer used less liberally from the realm of social media. In the world of medicine, clinicians who receive lifetime achievement awards or Nobel prizes are usually those who have spent endless hours in the lab or next to the patient. The term influencer carries such a significance that it should be used with caution.
Dr. Lawrence Rudski, in a Voices in Cardiology paper, describes his experience when one of his patients who was also a physician performed a transesophageal electrocardiogram on himself, conveying some important clinical lessons. Finally, Dr. Brailovsky and colleagues stress the importance of communication skills in clinical medicine. Sometimes, as doctors, we aim to read hundreds of pages of clinical guidelines and strive to be perfect clinicians. However, we often forget going back to basics in learning how to be human and how to achieve great communication skills, not only to patients and their families, but also to colleagues. We spend at least 50% of our lives within a hospital, next to a patient or working with fellow academics. It is important to have a culture of collegiality and teamwork, and to encourage each other. This is the feeling I keep getting from the editors in chief from the respective JACC journals: not only are we colleagues who respect each other, but most of all, we are a family.
Because I mentioned motivation, I will refer again to the ESC Congress. In a session on public health, I saw Dr. Robert Levine—who together with Drs. Michael Picard and Judy Hung—had prepared a post for me last year. I was overjoyed to see him, because I hadn’t seen him in person in the last few years. His presence reminded me about the hope he had given me during a difficult time in my life. When I was working in his lab in 2012, he was coming every day with compliments and encouraging statements. He would give us the motivation to work, to feel valued, to be a family. I feel blessed that I am working with inspirational people such as the ones just mentioned, but also Dr. Fuster, who welcomed me to the JACC journals family. I am honored and humbled to be working with Dr. Fuster, as well as with the wonderful JACC: Case Reports editorial board members with whom I work every day.
In conclusion, the future for JACC: Case Reports is bright, and to ensure we stay motivated, we keep developing new projects that you will see soon. We aim to motivate young people, to bridge fellows with senior colleagues, and to work together. We aim to improve and to reach excellence. In seeking to achieve that end, we continue to welcome your valuable feedback.