Page 8 - Journal of Structural Heart Disease Volume 2, Issue 6

235
Historical Perspectives
Figure 1. Drs. Hellenbrand and Hijazi welcoming attendees at the rst PICS meeting, Boston 1997
ing the successful coronary interventional course he had just attended. At the time Dr. Hess was not enthu- siastic about the idea. Dr. Hijazi next approached Dr. James Lock at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Lock raised concerns that such a course in the United States would be challenging to conduct, citing regu- latory issues that prohibit the use of devices and pro- cedures not approved in the United States during live case demonstrations. Dr. Lock encouraged Dr. Hijazi to approach Dr. Hess a second time. In the Spring of 1995 Dr. Hijazi wrote to Dr. Hess summarizing what he envisioned for a congenital cardiology meeting that would feature live case demonstrations including course topics, logistics and cost. In the end, Dr. Hess was not interested in such an untested idea.
Not to be deterred, Dr. Hijazi turned to his mentors at Yale University, Drs. William E. Hellenbrand and Charles S. Kleinman. Both were encouraging of his idea but made it clear that their participation in the course would assume no nancial responsibility on their behalf. It was Dr. David Fulton, Dr Hijazi’s division chief at Tufts University in Boston, who realized the value and potential impact of his idea and provided both nancial help and an introduction to the confer- ence management company still used to this day. With this support in place, Drs. Hijazi and Hellenbrand partnered to direct the rst PICS meeting in Boston in September 1997. With only 87 attendees, including faculty, the rst meeting was successful in every re-
Figure 2. Drs. Hijazi and Hellenbrand in Chicago, 17 years later
spect. The highlight of the meeting was the live cases performed from three sites; Floating Hospital for Chil- dren in Boston, Massachusetts, Yale-New Haven Chil- dren’s Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut and Duke University Medical Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The next 20 years has shown this to be absolutely true. There is simply no substitute to live case demon- strations in mastering complex congenital and struc- tural interventional procedures. Mixed in with the few live case demonstrations that rst year were collegial and informed lectures and commentary, but it was the live cases that stirred the audience and created the unique chemistry that was to become the hall- mark of PICS-AICS (Figures 1, 2).
Growth of an Idea
The success of the rst PICS meeting in Boston, en- couraged Drs. Hijazi and Hellenbrand to plan PICS as an annual event with a clear international focus. Over the rst few years attendance grew exponentially. The meeting venue has changed over the years based on the director’s goal to make the meeting location both desirable and easily accessible. On several occa- sions PICS was held outside the U.S. in concert with meetings of the World Congress of Pediatric Cardiolo- gy and Cardiac Surgery. As Table 1 shows, in recent years attendance has approached 1,000. For the 20th Anniversary meeting in Miami, we intend to nally
Jones, T.K. et al.
PICS 20 Year Anniversary