Our association has reached a certain maturity with our membership growing steadily, now reaching almost 7,500 as reported by Andreas Baumbach, the current Association Secretary and President-Elect, during the last EAPCI general assembly during EuroPCR. Over 130 countries are represented within the EAPCI.
As we grow, it is increasingly important to codify the rules of our Association in order to ensure that we keep to the ideals, goals and ethical standards we set for ourselves and which are also true for our parent organisation, the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The release of this edition of EuroIntervention is scheduled to coincide with the 2016 ESC Congress whose theme this year, “The Heart Team”, further echoes the profound integration of our work within the ESC, so it is only fitting that we will be voting on a new constitution at the EAPCI General Assembly during the ESC Congress in Rome.
The new EAPCI constitution*, fully supported by our Executive Board, further aligns our organisation with the ESC and other ESC member associations. This integration offers tremendous benefits in terms of internal governance and, through increased harmonisation, allows a renewed dynamic in our overall focus. A closer integration within the ESC can only strengthen the different projects we are committed to at the EAPCI. These include, among others: the scientific visibility of our association; our continued focus on valvular heart disease interventions with the creation of the Valve for Life initiative; the forthcoming PCR London Valves and our work with other associations and working groups within this field; our ongoing participation, among others, in the development of the ESC eLearning platform with the objective of raising educational standards in interventional cardiovascular medicine on a pan-European level as well as working towards providing opportunities and a platform for young cardiologists on a general and subspecialty level; and our and the ESC’s commitment to addressing gender differences.
*For more information, including the new constitution, please see the dedicated EAPCI website at http://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Communities/European-Association-of-Percutaneous-Cardiovascular-Interventions-EAPCI/Welcome-to-EAPCI
Committees: focusing on our goals, highlighting tomorrow’s leaders
This new constitution provides for certain procedural changes as well as defining membership and voting status. In addition, changes in the nomination of candidates for the Executive Board encourage participation from all regions within the ESC and, in the future, require that candidates for the position of EAPCI President-Elect should have held previous positions within the Association such as EAPCI Secretary, Treasurer or one of the EAPCI committee chairs.
For this reason, the responsibility of Committee chairs takes on an entirely new dimension in terms of the future governance of our association. Not only do these dedicated members give of their time to focus and effectively promote the different EAPCI projects that their committees were created for, but they provide the nominating committee with future potential candidates for the presidency of the association.
It is with this double optic that I would like to present the new committee chairs for 2016-2018. For the “Databases & Registries Committee”, the chair is Anna Sonia Petronio (Italy), and the co-chair is Peter Ludman (United Kingdom); for the “Education & Training Committee”, the chair is Dariusz Dudek (Poland) and the co-chair is Eric Van Belle (France) with Lino Goncalves (Portugal) continuing as our ESCeL Ambassador; Martine Gilard (France) chairs the “Fellowship Committee” with Bernard Prendergast (United Kingdom) as co-chair. For the “National Societies & International Affairs Committee” we have Emanuele Barbato (Belgium) as chair and Marko Noc (Slovenia) as co-chair; the “New Initiatives For Young Interventionalists Committee” will be chaired by Gabor Toth (Austria) with Francesco Saia (Italy) as co-chair. The “Nurses and Allied Professionals” chair and co-chair are David Sparv (Sweden) and Salome Coelho (Portugal), respectively. The “Scientific Documents & Initiatives Committee” will be chaired by Robert Byrne (Germany), co-chaired by Davide Capodanno (Italy) and the “Scientific Programme and Congress Committee” will be led by Marco Valgimigli (Switzerland) as chair and Julinda Mehilli (Germany) as co-chair. The “Website & Communication Committee” will see Pascal Meier (Switzerland) as chair, with Eugenio Stabile (Italy) as co-chair. The “Women Committee” will be chaired by Josepa Mauri (Spain) and Maris Radu (Denmark) as co-chair. The new “Valve for Life Initiative” will be chaired by Adam Witkowski (Poland) and co-chaired by Martine Gilard (France), and Chistoph Naber (Germany) will be chairing the “Stent for Life Initiative”.
Besides myself as President and, as mentioned above, Andreas Baumbach as President-Elect, the EAPCI Executive Board for 2016-2018 includes Past-President Stephan Windecker (Switzerland), Secretary, Giulio Guagliumi (Italy), Treasurer, Bernard Chevalier (France) and, as representatives of EuroPCR, Christoph Naber (Germany) and Bernard Prendergast (United Kingdom) as clinical representatives.
Become involved!
Over the next few months we will be focusing in depth on specific activities of these committees, but it is clear that the breadth of experience represented here along with the different European countries represented mirrors our membership in the ESC and underlines the ongoing importance of our integration within our parent organisation. We want to stress that your participation too is critical in ensuring that the EAPCI remains a vital and pioneering association. We invite you to become more involved, through our dedicated website*, through our journal, EuroIntervention, or by participating in the forthcoming meetings and general assemblies. We look forward to seeing you there.
