“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships”. I found this simple quote from Michael Jordan appropriate to express my feelings on the cusp of the conclusion of this tenure during which I had the honor of serving as president of SAC.
With the other members of the SAC 2023 Board of Directors, we tackled various projects for the growth of our Society, always discussing the benefits and difficulties as a team. There were limited instances where the president had to make the final decision on his own, so the first sentence of this text is representative and, in my opinion, the best way to work.
In this final part of the year, the 49th Argentine Congress of Cardiology, an event for which we have been preparing diligently since the start of 2023, was the perfect culmination. October 21 marked the end of the congress with a resounding success, a happy ending despite economic adversities. The event was attended by 12 087 registered participants and provided both scientifically attractive and useful information for daily practice from exceptional foreign and domestic speakers.
The representation of the SAC overseas remained robust this year, as we exchanged information with the participation of speakers from our society at various national and international congresses across several regions of the Americas and Europe.
We established common goals with ESC, AHA, and ACC, with the main objective of promoting activities among young people from different international societies.
We plan to open the 1st Argentine Congress of Prevention, Cardiometabolism, and Hypertension next year. This will be an interesting challenge, since it will bring together topics from independent councils, but with strong common topics.
We believe that both basic and clinical research are the foundation of our science, and as such, we have awarded six monetary grants for this purpose.
The SAC assisted thousands of aborigines in the northern provinces of Argentina, using ultrasound equipment to evaluate their cardiovascular health. The data collected from this survey will be published to aid in the understanding of the diseases prevalent in this region and to contribute to the future implementation of preventive measures by the competent authorities.
On the other hand, we work hard to spread our activities in the provinces of our country, encouraging the participation of our members who are not from CABA, while also recruiting new members representing the provinces of Argentina.
It may seem easy to list all our accomplishments now, but I assure you it was not. Nevertheless, what matters is that we succeeded.
Finally, let me make just a self-reflection quoting Gabriel García Márquez: “Don’t cry because it is over, smile because it happened.”
Claudio Majul, M.D. MTSAC
President of the Argentine Society of Cardiology
Rev Argent Cardiol 2023;91:370. http://dx.doi.org/10.7775/rac.v91.i5.20676
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
©Revista Argentina de Cardiología