Although the genesis of EuroIntervention has been previously related on a number of occasions in the folios of the Journal, I call upon the readers to indulge me with this concise account, chronicling the conception and formulation of a new Journal from scratch.
Act I
The discernible origin emanated from the year 2000. This was when Jean Marco and the Toulouse team, and myself and the Rotterdam group, decided to merge the Toulouse/Paris PCR course with the Rotterdam Euro CVS course. We shared a common vision, and promoting a collective information community was central to our mission. Instinctively sensing this, industry was elated at the creation of this unique educational forum.
Act II
The merging of the two interventional cardiology courses was, as anticipated, a considerable success. The stream of energy that went into the new course, “EuroPCR”, was breath-taking. In the blink of an eye, the course became a leading player in the international constellation of medical congresses. And yet, according to the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) our subspecialty, interventional cardiology, was only recognised as a working group (WG10) of this organisation.
Act III
It was in the Jean-Jacques Rousseau boardroom, situated in the basement of Paris’s Meridien Hotel, that an historic EuroPCR board meeting took place. During the meeting, an idea arose spontaneously to create a professional interventional cardiology association. At this juncture we had several of the necessary elements in place: we had a solid congress organisation pioneered by Marc Doncieux and his wife, Florence Doncieux. Furthermore, within the realms of the ESC structural organisation itself, we interventional cardiologists were part of the working group originally called the “working group on angina pectoris and coronary blood flow.” Thus, two of the three necessary components to constitute an association were now established, and the creation of a peer-reviewed Journal would fulfil the final requirement for an association. In an almost irresponsible impulse, I decisively volunteered for that job.
Act IV
During my travels back to Rotterdam from the EuroPCR Congress in Paris, I started to reflect on my new situation, not only in terms of the status but also the inherent obligations and responsibilities of being chief editor of a new Journal. As circumstance would have it, I was also without a collaborator, without an office and without a publisher. Adding further to this “Rotterdam conundrum”, I started to ask myself: who would be my right hand man, my alter ego, who would be my managing editor? These were only a few of the many interrogations swirling around in my mind.
Fortunately, I knew that I could count on the extensive professional experience of Frédéric Doncieux, who was not only the brother of Marc Doncieux but – more importantly for the creation of the Journal – also the publisher of the Europa Group.
Act V
On the high speed Thalys train back to Rotterdam that same day, I travelled with one of my favourite collaborators from the Rotterdam cath lab, Eugene McFadden. On the spot, I decided to approach Eugene. He was, and still is, a superb interventionalist and an unquestionably gifted scientific writer. Sadly, he had already decided to return to his beloved Ireland. It was imperative that I find a native English speaker to help me with the creation of the Journal from scratch.
Disappointed, but not discouraged by my first attempt to find my collaborator from within the lab, the next day I turned to another Irishman, Paul Cummins. Paul was our very professional research coordinator in the Interventional Department, and I persuaded him to join what was, in fact, a non-existing Journal organisation. Being a true Irishman, he bravely accepted the challenge. Later, my third partner in crime, Sylvie Lhoste, who was from Paris, would join the Rotterdam team. The next step was to rapidly rent an office in the Cardialysis building and from there we began, with our prestigious board of co-editors (Figure 1), to build the Journal.
Figure 1. The First EuroIntervention Editors. Back Row (L-R) Marie-Claude Morice, Alec Vahanian, Jean Fajadet, Patrick Serruys, Jean Marco, William Wijns, Giancarlo Biamino†, Pim de Feyter. Front Row (L-R) Eric Eeckhout, Marc van Sambeek, Bernard de Bruyne, Horst Sievert, Alberto Cremonesi, Dierk Scheinert. (N.B. Anthropomorphic correction of the artist's cartoon. P.W. Serruys and J. Marco have the same physical stature: 1.77m).
Act VI
In our first year, we published three issues. In the following years, we published 5, then 6, then 8, then 12 issues and finally 18 issues per year in a hybrid publication situation comprising two thirds printed and one third electronic issues.
One of the main challenges a new cardiovascular Journal faces is to become indexed in the PubMed Journal list, and consequently to acquire or achieve the holy grail of scientific publishing: the Journal impact factor as listed in the annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR). We finally met this challenge in 2012.
The Rotterdam fellows (Academic Research Team, ART) were instrumental in supporting the editorial board and eventually we selected a brilliant new generation of co-editors: Robert Byrne, Davide Capodanno, Darren Mylotte and Lars Søndergaard. Slowly but surely the Journal acquired a distinguished position among the myriad of cardiovascular Journals.
Recollecting those exuberant times, I have, of course, numerous memories. The editorials, which were always prepared at the very last minute before the exasperated printer’s deadline, often dictated and recorded on Paul’s smartphone; the animated and vivacious weekly board meetings on Thursday evenings, defending the retrospective, unblinded, non-randomised papers against the judgment of the “hard liners”; the annual EuroIntervention awards ceremony at EuroPCR that included the best reviewer and the best paper; and of course, Paul’s witty humour.
Act VII
After a decade of hard work, our always energetic managing editor, Paul, disclosed that he was somewhat fatigued and that the routine of managing the Journal was no longer intellectually challenging for him. He told me that he thought it was time to return to his academic career.
A decision was rapidly made with the publishers – Frédéric Doncieux and Véronique Deltort – and so Sylvie very naturally took up the sceptre of managing editor. Amy McDowell and Devia Bijkerk joined her shortly thereafter, and it was then, under Sylvie’s leadership, that these women became the “Three Graces” of the Journal, the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove.
At this point I became concerned about becoming an ageing Editor-in-Chief. Although Bill Roberts from Atlanta, Georgia, has been chief editor of the American Journal of Cardiology since 1982, I didn't envisage following his example.
Act VIII
Destiny, as it often will, helped me out.
On 6 July 2019, during a meeting in Singapore, I received an email from William Wijns, asking me if I would be interested in joining him in Galway to facilitate the establishment of a new core lab and a clinical research organisation (CRO) in Galway, Ireland, the CORRIB Research Centre for Advanced Imaging and Core Laboratory.
As it happened, a day later while still in Singapore, I received an invitation from the Cardialysis CEO to attend an administrative meeting in Cardialysis the following Monday, 8 July. At this meeting it became evident that the CEO and commissioners of the Cardialysis organisation had decided to terminate my freelance scientific collaboration with them. As a consequence, I would also have to leave my office on the first of October.
So I decided to take a sabbatical from the Journal editorship as I needed some time to reorganise the future of my Academic Research Team (12 international fellows, as well as the two directors of the core lab, Yoshi Onuma and Osama Soliman) and to prepare our emigration to Galway where a huge challenge awaited us.
Act IX
I asked Davide Capodanno to take over the Journal during my sabbatical.
He graciously sent me an amiable email telling me that I would be welcomed back to my position of Editor-in-Chief at any time. I earnestly appreciated his elegant gesture and statement, but as time passed, I started to comprehend the huge amount of work awaiting me in Galway. I therefore asked William Wijns, the PCR Organisation and EuroPCR to appoint my successor as Editor-in-Chief.
To that purpose, a Call for Editorship was launched in November 2019 to solicit candidates. Davide Capodanno was judiciously selected, and he took up the baton in a superb fashion, quickly raising the impact factor of the Journal.
And now the Journal has reached its 200th issue.
This is a remarkable testimony to the vitality of both the Journal itself and of our interventional community, as well as our readers, authors, reviewers, editors, proof setters, printers, and the back offices in Rotterdam and Toulouse.
Epilogue
When EuroIntervention reaches the magical 400th issue, I am sure that the Journal will have reached new firmaments, having focused in the meantime on noninvasive imaging, genomics and imagomics, new devices unimagined today even by the most visionary interventional cardiologists, as well as robotic interventions, artificial intelligence and holographic cardiology. Name it, and as usual we will be surprised by unexpected and unforeseen scientific and clinical developments.
We now know what the alpha of our Journal looks like but not yet the omega, should it ever reach that final letter of the Ancient Greek alphabet.
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