The American industrialist Henry Ford has provided the title of this editorial. Ford, an individual with strong European roots but the bearer of some refutable political opinions, understood the value of creating a team, the strength in maintaining it and the success gained through achieving common goals.
EuroIntervention
However, let us first discuss the novelty in this issue of EuroIntervention. May 2014 marks the start of the 10th volume of EuroIntervention and to celebrate this we have decided to change the categories of the papers. Up until now, we have categorised by format of paper, for instance all clinical research grouped together, and all experiment/preclinical grouped together. From now on we will categorise by four major themes: Coronary Interventions, Interventions for Structural Heart Disease, Endovascular Interventions and Interventions for Hypertension and Heart Failure. This new structure for the Journal in fact mimics the PCR scientific pathways applied at the various PCR meetings. We believe it will make it easier for you, the reader, to select more effectively the papers of your interest, although we hope that you will remain ever curious about developments outside your own field.
EuroPCR
An example to test your curiosity is the paper from Wang et al in this issue in the field of penile artery stenosis. This is a field that initially generates some degree of schoolboy humour but when one studies this topic further one realises that it is far from laughable. In fact this paper is a “Late Breaker” at this year’s EuroPCR. Another “Late Breaker” this year is the paper (also published in this issue) from Lopez Minguez et al on drug-coated balloons in bifurcations. The Editorial Board also expects to publish online at the time of EuroPCR other “Late Breakers”. At this point, the Editorial Board wishes to thank the EuroPCR Course Directors for inviting the Journal to participate in this format and look forward to this format again in 2015.
EAPCI
This month brings an end to Jean Fajadet’s presidency of the EAPCI. His presidency has been correctly characterised by many as a wholehearted success. His achievements are numerous but let us highlight two remarkable areas. Under his leadership membership has doubled to almost 6,000 and he was instrumental in the foundation of exciting new committees – The Young Interventionalists (the lifeblood of our profession), the “WOMEN” group and also the Nurses and Technicians committee. His support of the Journal has been nothing short of exemplary, and for this the EuroIntervention Editorial Board extends its sincere gratitude. Our new President, Stefan Windecker, is a man who needs no introduction: his expertise, his knowledge, and his positive nature are known to many and, with these characteristics, we look forward to his stewardship of our interventional community in the coming years.
Thanks to Jean’s vision, we are delighted this month to publish another EAPCI statement paper, this time on treatments for Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA), which is also endorsed by the Stent for Life (SFL) group. An increasing number of initially resuscitated patients are being admitted to hospitals, and practical guidelines for PCI for these patients are now available. The advent of these guidelines, the further “rollout” of SFL in Europe and beyond, coupled with the recent studies for STEMI patients have encouraged the Board of EuroPCR to devote the Great Debate to STEMI. In fact, this topic scored the highest, from six pre-selected topics, based on a poll organised within the EuroPCR Board and the interventional community by PCR online. Over 900 people responded to the poll. Within the next few weeks, we will publish a supplement on this topic under the Guest Editorship of Thomas Cuisset and Flavio Ribichini.
Although the Journal has a strong preference for internationally centred consensus/statement papers, exceptionally we have accepted to publish an Italian consensus document in this issue. The Board felt that the strength of the document is the novelty of its truly interdisciplinary character, whilst realising that it may not be generalisable to other European countries. We hope that, in the future, it will inspire our EAPCI members to formulate similar documents with an international consensus.
Coming together, keeping together, working together
As you may have noticed, the many aspects of European interventional cardiology are successfully working together to further our speciality and realise our communal dreams. There are many “stars” on this interventional stage, but the real stars are our “unsung heroes”, the people behind the scenes. These are those great human beings known to but a few, who encourage us, who motivate us, who support us, who comfort us…for me there has always only been one, one who has been my immense rock of support and love.
It is with this in mind that I wish, on behalf of my family, to express our deep gratitude and appreciation for your kind words, thoughts and prayers with the passing away of my wife, Danielle.
Ad te omnis caro veniet.
