Are You Getting Good Value for Money?

It is a daunting prospect coming in as the third Secretary General of EACTS after such prominent predecessors as Marko Turina and Torkel Aberg. Both Marko and then Torkel have put considerable thought and effort into building an effective organisational structure supported by sound financial planning.

One of the first questions that I asked Torkel when I started to take over as Secretary General was, “are our members getting good value for money?” The current subscription for a full member of EACTS is €198. This may not seem like much to surgeons working in affluent parts of Europe but may represent a very large expense to surgeons working in less economically developed countries in Europe and abroad. So what do you get for your money? Firstly, a member receives 12 printed copies of the European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery a year and 4 copies of theInteractive Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, in addition to on-line access. These cost €140 per member to produce. Secondly, members receive free registration to the Annual Meeting which includes scientific and other sessions, admission to the exhibition, complementary coffee, a comprehensive book of abstracts and invitations to the cocktail reception and a high quality concert in a prestigious venue. This alone is worth about €200. But it doesn’t stop there. In conjunction with the STS and the AATS, EACTS is a founding sponsor of CTSNet (http://www.ctsnet.org/) which members will know represents a unique resource for cardio-thoracic surgeons worldwide. Just take a look at the new General Thoracic Experts Techniques section, The Beating Heart Surgery Centre or the recently released second edition of Cardiac Surgery in the Adult edited by Professors Lawrence H. Cohn and L. Henry Edmunds. Behind the scenes EACTS is currently investing in the production of a multimedia text book of operative cardiac surgery which is being edited and produced by Marko Turina. The first chapters of this will hopefully be launched at the Annual meeting in Leipzig.

EACTS is also committed to improving the quality of training of cardiothoracic surgeons throughout Europe and this will become more apparent over the next few years. EACTS has been instrumental in successfully fighting for a separate division of cardiothoracic surgery within UEMS and this will enable us to increase our influence over post graduate training in cardiac and thoracic surgery in the European Union. On a more practical note, considerable investment and effort is being put into ensuring the success of the Bergamo School and, secondly, the international committee will be working to help trainees from countries with less developed health care economies reap the benefits of evolving sophisticated training in advanced units in Europe.

EACTS is also moving forward on providing useful information to members through the various clinical database initiatives which are beginning to mature.

Closely related to this EACTS has invested in the new The European Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Institute of Accreditation(ECTSIA) led by Samer Nashef which is a joint quality accreditation initiative between EACTS, The European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) and the European Society for Cardiovascular Surgery (ESCVS). It is hoped that this will position us favourably as increased healthcare regulation emerges from Brussels.

So, in pure financial terms members receive much more than is covered by their subscription. So how does EACTS make up the difference? Firstly EACTS is very grateful to our commercial sponsors, partners and exhibitors who contribute either through the annual exhibition or by helping with specific projects. Secondly astute financial management by previous and current Treasurers and previous Secretary Generals has ensured a good return on investments, which enables us to keep the subscription substantially lower than most equivalent national or international professional organisations.

So once again Torkel was right! Congratulations to our Treasurer José Pomar and the office staff in Windsor led by Kathy McGree. As members we are getting excellent value for money.

Bruce E. Keogh

Secretary General

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