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Historical Perspectives
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appropriately receiving the rst PICS Achievement Award in 1997 at the inaugural meeting in Boston (Figure 8, Table 3).
In 2017, we will introduce the rst Terry D. King travel award. This award will be given to help support a cardiologist traveling from an underdeveloped country. Based on this award, starting in 2018, a new travel award will also be established and will be fund- ed by Edwards Lifesciences. Eligible recipients from underserved countries will be chosen each year by a committee of PICS faculty.
We also wish to acknowledge the e orts of every- one involved in the preparation of the meeting on yearly basis. At top of that list is Ms. Kim Ray, coordi- nator of the meeting since its move to Chicago in 1999. Kim has done a phenomenal job communicat- ing with faculty and industry supporters to make sure that every faculty understands his/her role during the meeting and that our industry partners are well rep- resented at the meetings. In addition to Kim, Ms. Mi- chaleen Wallig has been the treasurer of the PICS Foundation ensuring that our books are balanced so we can keep bringing the best of the best in congen- ital and structural interventional cardiology to our at- tendees year after year. During the live cases, commu- nications between the operators and moderators is essential. Over the years, Mr. Ray Romero acted as an anchor and kept the communication alive. More re- cently, Mr. Russell D’Sa joined Ray and is helping year- ly. In the last few years, we introduced a newsletter during the meeting. Many people collaborate and work to produce this newsletter daily during the meeting. Our editor Dr. Karim Diab works closely with Dr. Tony Carlson and Mr. Richard Koulnanis to pro- duce this newsletter. Finally, we would like to ac- knowledge the e orts of Ms. Colene Diodati and Ms.
Sally Cook from Corporate Solutions, the meeting management company who take care of the meeting logistics and Mr. Mike Fitzgerald and his team from AVSS who make sure that all audiovisual needs of the meeting, including the live cases are top of the line.
We hope that you can join us to celebrate 20 years of innovation and progress in congenital and struc- tural interventional cardiology at our meeting in Mi- ami, Florida next month. We also hope that the friend- ship, collaboration and pursuit of the best care possible for our patients will help carry us forward to the next 20 years. After all, we are just getting started!
Acknowledgements
The authors are all Course Directors of the Pediatric Interventional Cardiac Symposium (PICS) or Director of the PICS Foundation (Ms. Ray).
Con ict of Interest
The authors have no con icts of interest relevant to this publication.
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Journal of Structural Heart Disease, December 2016
Volume 2, Issue 6:234-240
Cite this article as: Jones TK, Cheatham SL, Cheatham JP, Pedra CAC, Hellenbrand WE, Kenny DP, Ray K, Hijazi ZM. PICS: A Journey in Interventional Therapies for Congenital/ Structural Heart Disease – We’ve come a long way! Structural Heart Disease. 2016;2(6):234-240. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.12945/j.jshd.2016.016.16