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Editorial |
Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, Barrack Road, Exeter EX2 5DW, United Kingdom
Received 5 June 2007; accepted 18 July 2007.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1392 402689; fax: +44 1302 402175. (Email: richard.berrisford{at}rdeft.nhs.uk).
Honoured guests, fellow thoracic surgeons,
It is a very great privilege to have been the President of this Society during this past year. I have been fortunate in working with a determined, committed and goal-driven council, and in having huge support in particular from our General Secretary and the other officers in the council. I would like to thank you, the members of ESTS, for your engagement with and commitment to the Society. A President is only as effective as the people he or she represents.
I want to use this address to take stock, and really look at what the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons has become. What have we achieved, and what do we stand for? I want to celebrate the important principles which we uphold as a Society and highlight some potential dangers we need to avoid.
I would like you to think of a beautiful garden. All such creations are planted and nurtured by a team of dedicated gardeners. I could spend the rest of this address celebrating the many different gardeners who have worked so hard and so faithfully to bring this garden, which is this Society, into such an abundance of opportunity. I am deliberately not naming them so that you can better appreciate the magnificence of this Society.
The European Society of Thoracic Surgeons is the largest society of general thoracic surgeons in the world. We have 750 members in 28 countries, most of whom are dedicated general thoracic surgeons. If you take a conservative estimate that each member of ESTS sees five new patients a week, we represent surgeons who care for 200,000 new patients each year. You can see that this Society has an enormous influence on the care of patients across Europe with thoracic surgical problems. The breadth of our specialty, extending from lung transplantation to chest wall reconstruction, from management of trauma to minimally invasive lung resection tells us that those hundreds of thousands of patients present us with a multitude of challenges for which we, as their surgeons, need the support and council of our colleagues around the world and the very highest quality of education.
Education is at the heart of our constitution. It is our primary aim. The Society this year has started its own school of thoracic surgery, holding its first course in Antalya, Turkey in November, after a launch in Élan court, France in October. The vision behind this school is to provide outstanding education at low cost to as many European thoracic surgeons as possible as they begin their independent practice. This has only been made possible by the complete overhaul of our relationship with industry. Finally, our partners in industry at a European level have recognised the leading influence of ESTS, and they understand the synergism which can occur when we work together.
We are enjoying our 15th Annual Conference, with a record in number and quality of abstract submissions, a record number of international registrations and an outstanding scientific programme. For the first time in an ESTS conference, we have a half-day Techno meeting with live surgery at no additional cost to registration. For the first time an ESTS conference has free registration for members and our postgraduate course has a tiered registration fee according to the per-capita income of a member's country.
Equality should be a cornerstone for our Society. I repeat – we represent surgeons from 28 countries in Europe, with very different economies and consequently different opportunities for their thoracic surgeons. For too long has it been difficult, if not impossible, for some of our colleagues across Europe to afford the educational opportunities and sheer companionship that ESTS conferences offer. This situation cannot be overcome only by supporting the few who are lucky enough to win favour. ESTS has radically addressed this issue of inequality by substantially reducing membership fees according to their per-capita income.
We need to recognise that we are a fantastically diverse Society. On the one hand, this is one of the deepest satisfactions we have, in making longstanding friendships with colleagues in different countries and different cultures. But on the other hand the ESTS has to accept unique responsibilities. Important though our national societies are, ESTS is charged with responsibility at a European level. We have begun to understand this responsibility, drawing together the resources of Europe for the collective good of our patients. Look at just some of our achievements:
These achievements and others being planned are being overseen by the ad hoc committee structure to make sure that they have regular reviews and became accountable. If any member has an idea or a vision and is prepared to invest some time and energy in it, ask to join one of the ad hoc committees.
As the Society has grown in strength and influence, we have become an increasingly professional organisation. Our Secretariat is taking on more and more tasks and management roles, our council and committees are meeting virtually on-line as well as in person, and we now have a new partner – our Professional Conference Organisation. But with success comes a temptation to forget some of our core principles.
What do we need to guard against as a growing Society?
I touched earlier on equality as one of the cornerstones of the ESTS. We must guard against inequality in our provision of education and support to our members. We must do everything we can to make opportunities for training, for attending conferences, for election to positions of leadership, fair and open to all. We must continue to make sure that our programmes tackle all the conditions that thoracic surgeons contend with, from all parts of Europe. We must remember that many of us do not have access to the most expensive instruments and technology. The converse is also true; we must strive to give surgeons at the cutting edge of technology the support and education they need to succeed for their patients. Our syllabus must be broad.
In the ESTS we have a relatively relaxed attitude to ceremony and glitz. This is not to everyone's liking, and indeed there are some occasions which demand a certain formality. But sometimes it is possible to over invest in the achievements of the few to the disadvantage of the many. ESTS members who take positions of responsibility should be content in the satisfaction that service brings without expecting anything in return. This is the case in ESTS today; we need to make sure it stays that way. We must avoid making individual members too important and remember that our patients have to take the highest place of honour.
With an increasing budget sometimes comes the temptation to spend money on luxuries. It will be important to remain grounded in our view of luxury, again remembering that we are a group of people from many backgrounds. But we must also have the confidence to invest in our own future, particularly where growing the Society is concerned.
This Society will only grow by the hard work and dedication of its members. It is the law of the harvest – seeds which grow into beautiful trees need constant attention and protection. Perhaps many individual ESTS members have had a vision, a seed of an idea, which has fallen on stony ground, never to reach its potential. As a society, as a council, as regents, we must empower members and facilitate them to realise their vision. Too often the council has not made it easy for our members to bring their visions to reality and not expected members to contribute. I take my share of blame, and apologise to any of you who feel you have not been supported, encouraged and listened to. Too often also, we as individual members of ESTS lack the determination and commitment to see our visions through to the end in our busy professional lives.
Where do we get the energy from to give of our best? It may come from concern for our patients; a commitment to research; satisfaction from teaching; or practical, hands-on application. For many of us it is a combination of these things. But I suspect for some of us also, we recognise that we are not working to please men. In his letter to the Colossians Paul wrote ‘whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men’ (Colossians 3 v 23).
Indeed we do have very busy lives, most of us sharing these lives with our partners and, if we are fortunate enough, our children. Getting the balance right is so difficult, but so important. I hope you are as lucky as I am in the understanding and acceptance that your family gives you in your privileged but responsible job. But there are limits. There are times we have to say: ‘family comes first’. We need to recognise that we do have a choice in how we spend our time and that busyness is sometimes of our own creation. We need to invest our time with those whom we love. Those of us who are parents need to constantly remind ourselves that the door of childhood closes so fast and so finally [1].
To finish, I want to encourage you to be wholehearted in your calling as a thoracic surgeon and believe in ESTS as your professional partner. ESTS is a hugely powerful organisation. If you cannot see that, then you have not been listening. If you do not believe in the predominant role of ESTS in the future of European Thoracic Surgery, you have not been listening.
Do we need to shout about it? Margaret Thatcher, the first British woman Prime Minister, summed up the essence of being powerful when she said:
‘Being powerful is like being a lady; if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.’
We all need to remember what the ESTS has become. Alice Walker, the American writer, warns us:
‘The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any’
So believe in this Society, give it the best you have. The political difficulties we have faced over the last few years have led to too much introspection and too much energy dissipated in politics. It is time to get Back to the Future and spend as much energy as possible on what this Society can achieve for our specialty and our patients.
Footnotes
\#9734; Presented at the 15th European Conference on General Thoracic Surgery, Leuven, Belgium, June 3–6, 2007.
References
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  G. Rocco A view from above Eur. J. Cardiothorac. Surg., March 1, 2009; 35(3): 385 - 391. [Full Text] [PDF]
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