With the wrap up of the 2024 ANZSCTS Annual Scientific Meeting in Noosa my time as your president concludes. The meeting was highly educational and enjoyable, living up to the theme “Generation next- cardiothoracic surgery for the future”. Thank you to the convenors (Livia Williams, Jordan Ross, Jazmin Eckhaus, Chief Science and Education convenor (Andrie Stroebel), and organising committee members (Toni Hains, Nicole Maher, James Edelman, Benjamin Robinson, Prem Venugopal, Ashutosh Hardikar, Nick Danes).
A Robotics teaching day was organised Wednesday, prior to the meeting, with Device Technologies arranging for a da Vinci robot to travel to Noosa for training. Thank you to Jazmin Eckhaus and Levi Bassin for their hard work organising the robotics masterclass.
ANZSCTS Trainees Day was held on Thursday, with teaching on aortic valve surgery and TAVI. The day was sponsored by: Abbott, Corcym, Edwards Lifesciences and Medtronic. The Nurse and Allied Health Education Day was also held on Thursday, again sponsored by Corcym, Edwards Lifesciences and Medtronic.
The international speakers were excellent and invitations to visit their “home units” will undoubtably be taken up by trainees and surgeons (Yin-Kai Chao, Anson Cheung, Amy Fielder, Kendra Grubb, Paula Ugalde Figueroa). Thank you to all the invited speakers as well (Rosemary Wyber (Rheumatic heart disease), Tal Golsworthy (PEARS procedure),
John Frazer (ECMO), Nguyen Cong Huu (endoscopic cardiac surgery), Conal Austin (Ross, Pears), Christopher Baird (aortic valve repair), Thorsten Hanke (Minimal access cardiac surgery).
ANZSCTS also contributes to education by supporting several events during the year:
- CSTC Mandatory Trainees workshop (April, RACS, Melbourne; Noosa ASM November)
- Women in CTS Mentoring workshops (April, November)
- Annual New Zealand Cardiothoracic Surgery meeting of Aotearoa (Wellington March)
- 2024 RACS ASC (Christchurch May): Convocation, invited speakers within vascular program.
- Cardiac Society (Perth August), including Victor Chang Speaker CSANZ (Robert Larbalestier)
- ANZSCTS ASM (Noosa Nov)
- Victorian Thoracic Journal Club meetings
- South Australian Cardiothoracic Journal Club (September)
- NSW Thoracic Education Day (July 2024)
- NZ Cardiac Meeting 2025 (21-23 March, Blenheim, NZ)
- “3SCTS” Sydney ICC November 2025. In combination with Perfusion (ANZCP) and Anaesthesia (ANZCA) societies, and the International Congress of Cardiovascular Anaesthesia (ICCVA). Dr Brian Plunkett and Dr Chris Cao are the co-convenors.
- The AATS/ ANZSCTS Mitral Conclave 7-8 August Queenstown NZ 2025 is currently being organised by Dr Dick Bunton and Dr David Adams.
Awards 2024
- 2024 ANZSCTS President Service Awards: Aubrey Almeida, Mark Edwards, Chris Cole
- Medtronic Patrick Pritzwald-Stegmann award: Sam Emmanuel
- Avant Robert Xu award (best performing junior SET trainee): Michael Williams
- Avant Women in CTS education award: Hajar Kheslat (1st), Claudia Villanueva (2nd)
- Baxter Education Grants (Kei Woldendorp, Sam Emmanuel, Sanjay Dutta, Yashutosh Joshi)
- HLC F Rosenfeldt awards (Team leads: Paul Bannon, Julian Smith)
- Abbot Educational grant (Best performing Senior trainee): Rohen Skiba
- Edwards Lifesciences Travelling Scholarships: Robert Grant, Akshat Saxena, Andrew Cheng
- Dr Dick Bunton, Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) services as a cardiac surgeon in New Zealand
- Associate Professor Julie Mundy: Member of the Order of Australia (AM) General Division: For significant service to medicine, particularly cardiothoracic surgery, and to professional associations.
Appointments 2024/25
- Incoming president ANZSCTS: Ashutosh Hardikar
- Incoming Vice President: Marco Larobina
- Incoming Secretary/Treasurer: Phil Davis
- Incoming New Zealand representative: Christine Goh
- Chair Cardiothoracic Surgery Education and Training Committee: David Andrews
- ANZSCTS Science Education Chair commencing on 10 November 2023 – Andrie Stroebel.
- Thoracic Representative: Chris Cao
- Younger Fellows representative: Jazmin Eckhaus
- RACS Cardiothoracic representative: Andrew Cochrane
- NCR ANZSCTS representative: Jayme Bennetts
- NCR Steering Committee representative: Benjamin Robinson
- TGA Devices Committee: (Nominated representative) Allen James
- RACS Rural Health Equity Advisory and Reference Group: cardiothoracic representative Allen James
- Cardiothoracic Prostheses List Clinical Advisory Committee representative (DoH): James Edelman
- Advisory Committee on medical devices (ACMD): Simon Moten (Replacing Mark Edwards; Jan 1 2025-31 Dec 2027)
- Chair ANZSCTS database steering committee: Andrew Newcombe (replacing J Mundy)
- Chair, ANZSCTS Database Research Committee – Prof Julian Smith
- ANZTHOR Chair: Philip Antippa
- ANZCORS Chair: Nelson Alphonso
- RACS Cardiothoracic Surgery Education and Training Committee Executive Officer: Sue Moshis
New SET trainees 2025:
- Victoria Cook, Nick Bayfield, Lawrence Nair, Michael Daley, Jacqueline Nguyen Khuong, Andrew Mekhail, Michelle Ng, Sophia Tang, Sanjay Dutta
2024 FEX successful candidates:
- Robert Grant (NSW), Akshat Saxena (NZ), Andrew Cheng (VIC), Matt Doyle (NSW), Michelle Kim (VIC), Rohen Skiba (SA)
Conclusion:
I would like to wish the incoming executive good luck! In particular, the incoming President Dr Ashutosh Hardikar. Ash is an excellent communicator, dedicated surgeon, and committed educator. He is more than capable of guiding our society through the “choppy waters” we are facing.
The inaugural meeting to establish the Society was held on Friday 26th October 1990 at the Inter-GSM in Surfers Paradise, Queensland. Brian Buxton was the President, with Frank Rosenfeldt the Secretary/Treasurer. The objectives stated at this meeting were that the new society would improve the quality of cardiothoracic surgery, encourage basic and clinical research, collaborate with the cardiothoracic board of the RACS and to hold scientific meetings. This still holds true!
Many challenges remain for our specialty, from maintaining standards, to training the cardiac and thoracic surgeons of the future. Now more than ever we need strong representation to hospitals, government and even our own surgical college. Most of the work done by the society is pro bono. Yet it remains critical for us to do this work for the specialty to remain relevant and ensure the population of Australia and NZ have access to safe, high quality cardiothoracic surgical treatment.
It is easier to influence the future of your profession from within, rather than to critique from the outside. We have an excellent cohort of junior trainees and early consultants who deserve healthy work conditions, and reward for their hard work and long hours, who hopefully will be inspired one day to continue to develop the specialty and positively influence the surgeons of the future by becoming involved! So, it is even more important for you, every surgeon, trainee and aspiring heart lung doctor, to become involved, interested and outspoken for your specialty.
Have a great Christmas and New Year holiday period. Hopefully we all get a break in between the festive season aortic dissections, emergency CABG, decortications and CPR ECMO!
Emily Granger
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