SATS News

Friends and colleagues in the Scandinavian Association for Thoracic Surgery

First of all, I would like to thank you for choosing me as your new Secretary General. I am honoured and proud!

It was a privilege to arrange the meeting in Stockholm 2009, the 1^st Joint Scandinavian Conference in Cardiothoracic Surgery. It was truly a nice and interesting experience. SATS and SCANSECT have a long common history and more recently SATNU, organizing nurses working in the field of cardiothoracic surgery, joined the family.

I have been working with cardiothoracic surgery in Stockholm since 1979 with a main interest in valve surgery and surgery for heart failure. Since a few years I have been working also in Africa, mainly Sudan but also in Uganda, Rwanda and more recently in Cameroon. From this fall I will be working full time at Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery in Khartoum, Sudan, a hospital managed by “Emergency”, an Italian humanitarian organization.  Today my main interest is to participate in cardiac projects in low-economy countries.

I have been a member of the board of SATS since a few years and have learned more and more to appreciate the work by our organization. Scandinavian cooperation is essential also in our field and it is important not to leave everything to European or global organizations. Also, I find Timo’s initiative to invite our colleagues in the Baltic countries interesting. We look forward to the 4^th Joint Conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, in August 16-18, 2012. Mark your calendars already now!

To be a successful organization we need active members and I will work for this. We should support our young colleagues to participate in the meetings and to present their research. Also, I would emphasize that according to our bylaws the Association is open not only for surgeons but also for anesthesiologists working in cardiothoracic units and I hope that we will see an increased participation from them during years to come.

Finally, I would like to thank Timo for his years as Secretary General, and it will be a challenge to succeed him.

 Mail to: Dan Lindblom

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Dear friends

First things first. I would warmly thank the colleagues in Tampere for this year SATS annual meeting in Tampere. I also thank the other organisations, SCANSECT and SATNU and others for their contribution to the congress. The meeting in Tampere was a nice example of Scandinavian atmosphere as its best. The scientific program had high standard, the number of attendants was more than 400 and the social events, especially the banquet, was so amusing. Congratulations to the organizing team.

  With these heart warming feelings it is just the right time to end my job as the Secretary General of SATS. I have done two three year periods and think to have given the best I can do to SATS. For me it has been a good phase of my life. I have got many good new friends in all Scandinavian and also in Baltic countries. I would like to thank you all for your friendship. My warmest thanks go to the members of SATS board and scientific committee. We have had so many nice meetings with new ideas and plans. It was a pleasure and privilege to work with you. I also thank the representatives of the other organisations, SCANSECT and SATNU, for their first class cooperation.  The most important factor when organizing a successful meeting are the companies. We have had hard times before but lately we have more and more found a common tone in our doing. I personally always have found it easy to cooperate with the companies. It has been a fair play on both sides.

  I have a couple of things I would like to point out. First I wish all the best to the colleagues in Lithuania in their job to organize the next year annual meeting in Vilnius. They are doing it first time and need help and support from all of us. I have learned to know them as good friends and colleagues who seriously try to do their best in the circumstances they have got. They have done a good start as we could have seen in the first announcement.

  My second concern is the meeting of SSRCTS in Geilo. So far it has been an excellent opportunity to the younger colleagues to present their scientific studies. Tomas Gudbjartsson and Mari-Liis Kaljusto have every year given a huge contribution to the meeting but the support of the companies has decreased during the years. Let us hope the best. On the other side, we have decided in our last board meeting to give some economical support to the Society if needed.

  I have a hard trust to the future of SATS. I am sure my successor, Dan Lindblom, is prepared to work for the Association and give his effort to the further development of the Scandinavian-Baltic

co-operation in cardiothoracic surgery. We all know Dan as a very energetic man and as a man with wide spectrum of life experiences. Just now he is doing his all day work in Africa.

 Since February this year I am retired from my clinical and administrative work. However, I am still continuing the research work. The life is full of new challenges. I took the first of them in March and April by doing alone a bicycle ride through the Southern states of USA from The Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.  It took 50 days and the distance was 4940 km. Quite an experience.

Three times hurrah to SATS

I wish you all the best and see you next year in Vilnius!

Timo Savunen

Secretary General, emeritus

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SATS General Secretary Timo Savunen is now traveling by bicycle in USA, from coast to coast, from San Diego to San Augustin.  Here is Timo's blog, but sorry - it is in finnish.

click here: Timo Savunen Biking blog

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Dear Colleagues

The very best time of the summer and for some of us even the best time of the year is at hand. Many  Scandinavian people have their vacations in July when the days are still long and the weather presumably warm. We have so much waited for the sunny days during the long and dark winter time. This year the winter was especially hard at least in Finland and the more there is longing for the summer.

 My summer  has traditionally  also contained the annual meeting of SATS. This year we will meet in late August in the beautiful surroundings of Holmenkollen in Oslo. Odd Geiran and his team. have done an  good job with the excellent scientific as well as with the interesting social program  I am very much looking forward  to seeing there. Also this year it will be a joint meeting of five organisations: Scandinavian Association for Thoracic Surgery, Scandinavian Society for Extracorporeal Circulation, Scandinavian Association for Thoracic Nurses, Scandinavian meeting for Cardiothoracic Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care and Scandinavian meeting for Physiotherapy in Cardiothoracic Surgery. The cooperation in our meetings very well reflects   the feature of our daily work: it is teamwork.

  I once again want to say some words dealing with membership issues. In three Nordic countries; in  Norway, Sweden and Finland all members of the national societies automatically also are members of SATS. If you are a fresh member of a national society and you want to speed up the SATS membership process you send a  membership application through e-mail to me. The lists of the members I get by request from the national societies are not necessarily up to date. We have not come to any agreement with the Danish national society. That means the Danish colleagues  have always to do the membership application individually. Also the members from any other country  get the membership  the same way.

  I  have a privilege and pleasure to thank Jan Hultman, Dan Lindblom and all the members of the team for the last year meeting in Stockholm even I have done it before. I t was an excellent example of the Scandinavian meeting as its best. The economies of the meeting were outstanding with a  nice surplus to  all of us. A couple of notices concerning the finances of the society. We pay now the fee for the Scandinavian Cardiovascular Journal for all the members. We also have decided to support  some younger colleagues from Iceland to attend the meeting in Oslo supposing they have a presentation to give.

  Next year meeting  (2011) will take place in Tampere, Finland,  and in two years( 2012) in Vilnius, Lithuania.

I wish to all of you beautiful summer days!

We will see in Oslo!

Timo Savunen 

Secretary General

SATS