Cardiovascular surgery: reflections at the threshold of the 60th Jubilee of the ESCVS

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Colleagues,

It is the second time that the welcoming Turkey has been the host of our Congress. After the memorable 52nd ESCVS Congress that took place in Istanbul in October 2003, today the charming and hospitable Cesme welcomes the participants of the 59th Congress.

A big thank you to the Hosts: Prof. Oztekin Oto and the entire team of collaborators. It is thanks to your efforts and organizational skills that we have the possibility to discuss here in Cesme the most important current problems in cardiovascular surgery but at the same time to become familiar with your beautiful country, a region where Europe and Asia meet, and where the proud and sometimes complex history mingles with modernity. It should be remembered that the ancient Smyrna, that is today’s Izmir, as well as Sardes were once among the most important Roman and then Byzantine cities. I would like to thank the Authorities of the city for their hospitality towards the Congress and its participants, from the earliest stages of its organization up until the actual international gathering.

The European Society for Cardiovascular Surgery (ESCVS) is the oldest European Society devoted to cardiac, vascular and endovascular surgery. The beginnings of the ESCVS go back to 1950 when Rene Leriche, a famous French surgeon, the author of 15 monographs and more than 1,400 publications, together with J.C. Dos Santos, E. Malan and G. Arnuf met in Paris and decided to hold a meeting in Turin, Italy on 31 May 1951 where the ESCVS was founded (Fig. 2). The first congress of the ESCVS was held in Strasbourg in October 1952 (Fig. 1).

Much earlier, in 1917, the American Association for Thoracic Surgery was created in the USA and in 1947 the American Society for Vascular Surgery. Among the leaders and pioneers of the ESCVS of that time were vascular surgeons, such as Rene Leriche and R. dos Santos but also cardiac surgeons, such as E. Derra, C. Crafoord, F. Martorell, A. Dogliotti and Francis Fontain – one of the founders of EACTS, a sibling 24-year-old organization, whose membership we are proud of.

Interestingly, in 1959, the oldest organization in the USA, that is the AATS, reacting to the dynamic development of cardiovascular surgery and medicine, noticed the urgent need for a change and transformation of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery (Fig. 3).

In...


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