13 GSK Gdańskie Spotkania Kardiochirurgiczne

Dear Sirs!

I am honoured to invite you to the next Gdansk Cardiosurgical Conference (GCC) which is due to take place from the 14^th to 15^th January 2011. It is already the 13^th conference concerning cardiosurgery  brought forward by a team from the Cardiosurgical Clinic at the Medical University of Gdansk. Having received  extremely positive feedback from the 12^th GCC, we are looking forward to the challenge of living up to your high expectations once again. Last year’s GCC involved over 600 participants who could exchange their views and participate in burning debates with all the groups related to cardiosurgery:   cardiosurgeons, surgeons, anaesthetists, cardio – pulmonologists, nurses and rehabilitators.

One of the subjects considered for this year’s main discussion is the treatment of the ischemic heart disease. This topic has been chosen because of its substantive and economic nature which relates to the practice of both cardiosurgeons and invasive cardiologists. For instance, recent trends suggest that the number of coronary artery surgeons is rapidly decreasing which is in stark contrast with the rapid increase of percutaneous interventions. Due to this change, the profile of the patients being treated on the cardiosurgical wards has been altered.

Furthermore, this year the ECS/EACTS (European Association For Cardio-Thoracic Surgery) has presented new recommendations for the treatment of the ischemic heart disease. We hope that the discussion about these issues will provide us with a wonderful opportunity to engage in a fruitful debate on the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to this practice. In particular, we hope that having gathered cardiosurgeons, cardiologists and invasive cardiologists, will help us draw  meaningful conclusions. Because of the nature of the topic, reaching consensus may be tough but I believe that our discussions will contribute to the improvement in the quality of the  treatment of one of the recently most common diseases.

Moreover, nursery and rehabilitation conferences are constantly growing and encouraging more and more participants willing to take part in discussions related to the care and rehabilitation of cardiosurgical patients.

Overall, I hope that this year’s GCC will be a place where participants will be able to gain an important insight into the theoretical and practical sides of their professions. I also hope that the event will provide you with the opportunity to meet new people and share their experiences. Finally, I would like to inform you that thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, there will be no registration fee for this year’s GCC.

We look forward to seeing you in Gdansk!

Prof. Jan Rogowski

Head of Cardiac Surgery Department