Deadline for abstracts:
July 15th, 2010
Interview with Dr. Igor Rudez (mp3 audio file)
Welcome letter
Dear colleagues,
Dear friends,
Being a member of HSForum, over past several years I've been a witness of plenty interesting debates, and all of them were inspired by real-life problems, pitfalls, ups and downs we encounter in our everyday work. All of these debates were open-minded, without any industry disclosures and/or bonds, and they do represent real life!
A couple of years ago, we started meeting each other during major cardio surgical meetings all around the Globe, and another improvement was made. We were able to put together faces with written comments. Many professional and personal friendships arose from such meetings and contacts.
Taking a step forward!
The time has come to make another step forward, and that is to organize our very own #1 HSF Meeting, a meeting which is supposed to be "not another cardiac surgical meeting", but a meeting in a more loose and friendlier manner, where many problems could and should be discussed among colleagues and friends without any fear of malpractice threat or whatever law-and-penalty harassment and witch-hunt!
From the bottom of my heart I thank you for your efforts to participate in the Meeting and welcome you to Croatia. As Humphrey Bogart said in "Casablanca" ending: "Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".
And I am sure it is!
Igor Rudez, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Cardiac Surgery
University Hospital Dubrava
Zagreb, Croatia
Email: rudi@kbd.hr
Email: hsfmeeting@hsfmeeting.com
Introduction
Before 1995, dissemination of a new surgical discovery was limited to publishing an article in one of only 4 or 5 tightly controlled academic journals, each taking about 1 year from manuscript submission to final print. Young and innovative surgeons often had their papers declined because their ideas were either too controversial or they were not well known university faculty. This traditional publishing model was preventing the spread of new ideas at the same time the pace of innovation in medicine was accelerating.
With the introduction of the World Wide Web, I saw an opportunity to break the prejudice of the traditional academic publishing model and instead to base peer review purely on scientific content. I developeda system of double blind peer review which could be performed efficiently using the new Internet tools (email, Web, PDFs, digital photos and movies, etc). The Heart Surgery Forum was launched in June 1995 as the first academic peer reviewed journal on the Web, and today remains a standard bearer for fair and equitable peer review as well as timely publication.
As part of the original HSF project, I also envisioned connecting the CT surgical community without geographic or time barriers. In the fall of 1995, I created the first email discussion list for cardiothoracic surgeons, the OpenHeart-L. Now in its 14th year, the OHL discusses challenging cases and solutions amongst a group of 1,600 surgeons in over 150 countries worldwide. The OHL embodies my vision of keeping the entire profession informed of the latest developments in real time, giving all OHL members the true advantage of sharing the knowledge and experience of their colleagues in their every day practice.
Mark Levinson, MD.
Founder, Editor-in-Chief
The Heart Surgery ForumR
Multimedia Cardiothoracic Journal
URL: http://www.hsforum.com
URL: http://newoptionsinheartsurgery.com
Email: mmlevinson@hsforum.com
Topics
- CORONARY SURGERY
- VALVE SURGERY
- AORTIC SURGERY
- CONGENITAL SURGERY
- HEART FAILURE, ASSIST DEVICES, HEART TRANSPLANT,
- and other fields of expertise and interest.
