The Roland Hetzer International Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery Society (RHICS),
held its 2nd Expert Forum on February 11th 2012 in Freiburg, Germany, just three months
after the 1st Expert Forum which took place in Lisbon, Portugal, in pursuit of its
goals and objectives, which are to provide a forum for expert discussion on relevant
cardiothoracic issues, to set up guidelines based on conclusions derived from this
expert opinion forum, to promote cardiothoracic surgical education skills from beyond
standardized and statistical medicine to a patient-based medicine wherein treatment
approaches are individualized and personalized, and specific high-quality treatment
tailored to the patient’s unique pathology so as to give them an optimal quality of
life, after surgery, to promote continuing medical education through the holding of
regular symposia and meetings and the continuance of clinical and experimental research
efforts and the publication of the results in scientific journals, and to foster international
collaboration and cooperation in clinical practice and scientific research in cardiothoracic
and vascular surgery and associated fields. With numerous annual meetings, symposia,
and conferences taking place in the field of cardiothoracic surgery, notwithstanding
the hundreds of published expertise papers on new developments, ongoing researches,
new technologies and techniques, surgical outcomes and its implications on clinical
practice, when does an expert opinion matter?
We are constantly bombarded with controversies in surgical options to manage cardiovascular
diseases.
What strategies to offer, which to repair, when to replace, for what disease, and
for whom, seem to be eternal questions. Then again, which option gives the most acceptable,
if not the most excellent, outcome, is of course, ever a matter of controversy. Most,
if not all, published literature on a specific field in cardiothoracic surgery, would
claim having the best outcome using the best technique for a certain subset of patients.
The readers are left muddled up, whether their patients belong to those categorized
in the published reports. We surf the internet but as we are all aware much of this
material can be partially reliable and indeed often pitched at the wrong entry level
and even far too complex for those new in the field.
There are various editorials and commentaries we can search in Pubmed, but they may
seem rather half-hearted to match what we are searching for covering some areas in
great depth and others with less than a couple of bullet points. Surgical journals
may sometimes let us down in our search for what we need.
There is nothing quite like the mad pilgrimage to Black Hole followed by the terrible
sinking feeling as you open pages after pages of journals, only to realise we do not
understand a single word of concepts being discussed, or worst, we get even more confused.
There must be a way to sum all these up, in a very concise manner, and from the mouths
of the experts themselves. This is where an expert forum comes in.
Expert opinions concentrate on driving back the boundaries of debates and controversies.
It gives the audience or the readers an opportunity to take a fresh look at key issues
through the eyes of people who know them best - masters and virtuosos, who are on
the front line - to promote ideas and guidelines based on best practice from experts
in their relevant fields.
If we are to dramatically improve practice in our chosen fields, expert opinions from
renowned surgeons, who put forward their Best Practice first-hand experience and suggestions,
are priceless and much desired.
Expert opinion aims to stimulate intellectual debate in key topics, whilst also offering
a flagship for driving forward a truly logical and reproducible agenda. Hence, an
expert opinion provides systematic and authoritative analysis to support every stage
in our search for the best patient-based medicine.
What makes expert forum really stand out is each paper presented concludes not with
the “Conclusion” but with an “Expert Opinion”. This is where our speakers, all internationally
recognised experts in their field and key opinion leaders within the cardiothoracic
field, give their own personal view.
They put their knowledge, expertise and experience to the test, stating where the
research is now, where it should go next, and how it should get there. And, because
we recognise that there are two sides to every argument, participants and audience
feedback is always welcome.
In this issue of the Journal we publish five expert opinions [1,2,3,4,5] and three
original articles [6,7,8] presented at the 2nd RHICS Expert Forum. We are certain
that the readers (40% from North America, 50% from Europe and 10% from Asia and Australia
in the last issue) will appreciate them as much as those who personally attended the
Freiburg meeting.