The Canadian Cardiovascular Society

A Society that is shaking things up by instigating ‘disruptive’ changes, to stay relevant, show value to its members and ensure success of the Society in modern times When is the last time you described a medical society as ‘disruptive’? ‘Disruptive’ is a relative concept. Admittedly, you don’t have to shake things up too hard to be considered disruptive when your founding focus has defined your activities for almost 75 years. But positive disruption is exactly what the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) is embracing as we approach this milestone anniversary in 2022. Much has changed at the CCS in the four short years since our Society was last profiled in the December 2016 issue of CardioPulse. At the same time, that article’s concluding sentiment that ‘collaboration is at the heart of progress’ drives us as much, if not more, than it did back then. It’s by challenging ourselves to look at and do things differently, including how and with whom we collaborate, that we’re embracing disruption. Why now? Not too long ago, our Council table, standing committee meetings or faculty of the educational session at our annual Canadian Cardiovascular Congress were mostly late-career, male Caucasians. As a result, we would sometimes get stuck in a navel gazing paradigm that can arise when you bring together individuals who have all reached the same point in life and have travelled very similar paths to get there. Realizing our habits and traditions had the unintended effect of excluding voices from our tables, we have very deliberately taken action to ensure that the Society doesn’t become the ‘Okay, Boomer’ of the profession. But how do we stay relevant? How do we demonstrate value to our members? How do we ensure a vibrant future for our Society? These aren’t complicated problems…but they are complex ones. Complicated problems can be broken up into their (many) component parts and can dealt with in a logical, repeatable, step-by-step approach. Complex challenges, on the other hand, involve both knowns and unknowns, dependencies and unpredictability. They require more than just expertise and doing more of the same—they require new thinking, innovation and maybe taking a few risks along the way. The increasing complexity of patients and the systems in which we work are driving new technologies, new approaches to treatment and unprecedented levels of collaboration within and beyond heart care teams. Similarly, the increasing complexity of our profession and the world around us is driving us to reconsider how we approach the complex challenge of demonstrating relevance and value. In the past, we’ve addressed diversity by creating a seat at the table (and making sure we patted ourselves on the back for it). But that was the old way of doing things. Today, we’re not only creating seats to ensure full representation of the ‘three G’s’ of gender, geography and generations, but we’re also making sure those voices are heard and are helping to shape the future of the CCS. One of our complex challenges, which I’m sure we all face, has been and continues to be early career engagement. The status quo wasn’t enticing early career cardiologists and cardiac surgeons to engage with their professional associations, let alone join it. Rather than a black box approach of disappearing into a closed-door Council or committee meeting and coming out with a fully baked offering, we worked with two of our younger mid-career members to invite a subset of our most promising early career members to our annual conference and ask them what they needed from us. That invaluable consultation is the foundation of our new CAN-Fuel programme. The non-clinical needs of this group, like leadership and business planning, were the most eye-opening for us and are inspiring us to look at how we can incorporate these skills into our broader Continuing Professional Development programme. Under an arrangement called the ‘One Heart Team’, we’ve strengthened our relationship with our affiliate partners, 11 constituent subspecialty associations. Although a majority of the affiliates’ members are also CCS members, the best interest of the CCS was variably always aligned with the best interest of the individual affiliates, and vice versa. We’ve built formal mechanisms and adapted existing Society programmes to prioritize affiliate involvement. For instance, we made changes to our clinical practice guidelines programme to make it easier for affiliates to partner with the CCS to more quickly share clinical implications of new technologies, tools, or approaches to care occurring in their area of practice. Now not only can we mutually leverage our collective expertise, experience and resources, but we all avoid being on the losing end of divided loyalties. Traditionally, it’s been the president and the CEO responsible for the advocacy and government relations activities of the Society. Remembering that health care in Canada is an interlocking system of 10 provincial and 3 territorial systems, primarily funded by the federal government, advocacy for national associations is, indeed, a complex challenge. We’re coaching our members and providing them with opportunities to advocate for systems-level change at parliamentary committees and meetings with key policy makers. These physicians work with patients every day on the front lines of care delivery and understand all too well the gaps between policy, practice and patient outcomes. We no longer underestimate the impact of their stories and perspectives. Lastly, the COVID-19 crisis has been an extraordinary journey to define how we can support each other and thus support our patients. With the development of our Rapid Response Team, we were able to bind our community around consensus guidance to inform and strengthen those teams in their quest to provide best care. These are just a few examples of what we’re doing differently as we begin a new decade. I’d love to hear from other societies about how you’re shaking things up, how you’re tackling your most complex problems and the results you’re seeing so far. Email me and let me know, akrahn@mail.ubc.ca Andrew Krahn, MD, FRCPC, FHRS, FCCS President, Canadian Cardiovascular Society Conflict of interest: none declared.

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