PRESIDENT LETTER

Dear colleagues and partners,

It seems obvious that the next term of presidency is going to be extremely challenging as it was once said: "you can learn from success but you have to work on it; it is a lot easier to learn from failure".

However, because we do believe that success is a journey not a destination, we will have to rely on your commitment, assistance and full collaboration in order to build on our success and lead the future. Therefore, I kindly request your full support in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the LSC for the coming two years, which I will elaborate on in a moment.

Prior to that, I would like to address the representatives of the pharmaceutical companies that I prefer not to call "sponsors", a description that reduces our relationship to its mere financial aspect, I'd rather consider them as being our scientific partners as well, as our common ultimate goal is summarized by this beautiful quotation from George Merck II: "We are in the business of preserving and improving human life. All of our actions must be measured by our success in achieving this goal".

This collaboration cannot be solid, stable and long term unless based on the principle of win/win relationship which includes three major criteria:

• Integrity, which is confirming reality to words
  
• Maturity, which is the ability to express our own convictions balanced with consideration for the thoughts and feelings of others
  
• Abundance mentality, which is the paradigm that there is plenty and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision-making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives and above all creativity

I would like to remind you that, a few years back, under the presidency of Pr Elie Checkrallah, the executive committee has established some rules and regulations upon which the LSC should rely in order to make a decision whether to collaborate with any scientific event or provide it with its prestigious label or not. Unfortunately, these rules and regulations were never fully applied. However, they will now be meticulously followed in order to avoid any abuse and in order to respect the concept of the win/win relationship we are willing to seek.

It is in this way that the LSC will be your platform, a scientific one, precise and well balanced, capable to provide the user with a distinctive label of high quality and prestige; it is only through this way that profit will eventually prevail.

Finally, during the next two years we will have three major scientific activities: In October 2009, the first meeting of echocardiography in the Middle-East (ME-Echo) with the collaboration of the American Society of Echocardiography and the European Association of Echocardiography. In March 2010 the International meeting of the LSC and in April 2011 the Lebanese Course on Revascularization (LCR). You will be informed regularly about our activities on our website. Hope your active participation.

Best Regards.

Elie Chammas MD, FESC
President, Lebanese Society of Cardiology 2009-2011