Continuing education and environment in the center of action

THE PRESIDENT'S PAGE

Continuing education and environment in the center of action

Antonio Carlos Palandri Chagas

President of SBC

^{Mailing address}

Three pioneering initiatives of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology (SBC) are the main topic of this edition: the offer of scholarships by Harvard University; the Symposium of Editors of International Journals to be held at the 64^th Brazilian Congress of Cardiology and the warning to the population on the cardiovascular risk caused by pollution exposure.

All these actions demonstrate not only the efforts, but mainly the accomplishments of the current management regarding our projects to internationalize the Brazilian Society of Cardiology, to guarantee access to high-quality continuing education and also to publicize to the non-medical population the importance of protecting the environment from the point of view of cardiac risk prevention.

With a pioneering decision regarding a Brazilian medical society, Harvard Medical School is offering two scholarships at post-doctorate level for training at the Brigham and Women´s Hospital, in Boston, USA. The documents are conditions for the selection of the candidates interested to apply can be found at the announcement at the end of this issue of Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia.

The two-year training period, called "Jorge Paulo Lemann Cardiovascular Research Postdoctoral Fellowship", has been named after its sponsor. The association with the SBC started to be envisaged at the last Congress of the American College of Cardiology. Its official announcement was made at the end of May, through a letter signed by the professor and Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine of the hospital where the training will take place, Professor Peter Libby, a dear friend of Brazilian Cardiology, who will also be in charge of the Aula Magna at the opening of the Brazilian Congress of Cardiology this year.

And, talking about the event, for the first time a special session will be granted to the Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia. As we had mentioned in the last issue, the Symposium of the Editors of International Journals is guaranteed. The session will take place on September 14, Monday, from 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM, under the coordination of our Communication Director, Dr. Renato A. K. Kalil.

We will take to Salvador the Chief Editors of Revista Portuguesa de Cardiologia, Fausto Pinto, and of Revista Española de Cardiología, Fernando Alfonso, so that, together with the Chief Editor of this journal, Fernando Bacal, we can establish a forum for scientific discussion, dealing with universal themes for promoting our journals.

Also ground-breaking, at worldwide level, the Brazilian Society of Cardiology has joined a new forum: the importance of preserving the environment from the point of view of cardiovascular health maintenance. International and also Brazilian studies, mainly promoted by the University of Sao Paulo, have demonstrated the increase in cardiac events on days that present higher levels of air pollution.

Thus, a broad action directed at this objective is being programmed by SBC. The strategies include appealing to the non-medical population through information campaigns and the media itself, which has been covering the theme.

In August we will also gather the entire Board of Directors of this entity, including its state and regional departments, to reinforce the discussion on the impact of environmental degradation on cardiovascular health. We will also take advantage of the opportunity to create a document that will be forwarded to our Minister of the Environment, Carlos Minc, who has embraced several of SBC causes.

Finally, as pioneers, we are at the center of a worldwide discussion and are supporting a very important objective, in which we shall be followed by many other medical entities.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  13 Oct 2009
• Date of issue
  July 2009