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Ann Thorac Surg 2004;78:391-398
© 2004 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Presidential address

Quo vadimus?

Robert A. Guyton, MDa*

a Carlyle Fraser Heart Center, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

* Address reprint requests to Dr Guyton, Cardiothoracic Surgery, Suite A2223, 1365 Clifton Rd NE, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
e-mail: robert_guyton@emoryhealthcare.org

Presented at the Fortieth Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, San Antonio, TX, Jan 26–28, 2004.

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.


   Introduction
 

Dr Guyton discloses that he has a financial relationship with Medtronic, Inc.

 


Today I attempt to address the question that I have been asked so many times in the last year: What is happening to us? Where are we going? Quo vadimus?

I divide my effort into three parts. First, where are we now? I will describe the transformation of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). Second, where are we going? I will discuss three facets of our future: innovation in our clinical skills, quality in health care, and political engagement. And third, why must we move forward?

Last year Dr William Baumgartner spoke of his optimism regarding our specialty. I believe that optimism is justified, but for me, that has not always been the case. In 1997 I was just beginning my term as Treasurer of your organization. I was paralyzed with a gut-wrenching angst about the future of our specialty. Eleven months away was a 40% reduction in Medicare reimbursement for cardiac surgery. Doctor Robert Repogle brought us the message: "Armageddon is here!"

I remember reading Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" and thinking, "This is where we are!":

For the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

This crushing statement of anxiety from Dover Beach is prefaced with seven critical words: " ... let us be true to one another." [1]

We have been true to one another and we have worked together to restore the conviction that, borrowing from William Faulkner, we will not merely endure, we will . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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