Japanese Heart Rhythm Society

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Greetings from the President

President

Japanese Heart Rhythm Society
President Wataru Shimizu
Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Nippon Medical School

I am pleased to announce that I will be serving my second term as the 5th President of the Japanese Heart Rhythm Society (JHRS). The Society was formed in June 2015 through the merger of the Japanese Society of Electrocardiography (established in 1983) and the Japanese Cardiac Pacing Society (established in 1986), and has a 39-year tradition including its predecessors. It is a great honor for me to continue to serve as the representative of such a historic society, and I am once again humbled by the heavy responsibility. JHRS is composed of not only physicians in internal medicine but also cardiovascular surgeons, pediatricians, basic researchers, medical engineers, medical professionals (clinical engineers, laboratory technicians, nurses, radiology technicians, pharmacists, CDRs), and others involved in arrhythmia treatment. The number of members is 11,227 as of September 1, 2022, including 1,235 arrhythmia specialists, and JHRS is one of the largest subspecialty societies in the field of cardiovascular medicine.

The field of modern arrhythmology has expanded to include non-pharmacological treatment such as catheter ablation, arrhythmia device therapy (implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, cardiac resynchronization therapy, remote monitoring) and arrhythmia surgery, drug therapy, and genetic diagnosis of hereditary arrhythmias. The progress of these developments has been remarkable. In particular, ablation and arrhythmia device therapy often involve highly advanced medical devices, and multidisciplinary team medicine with the participation of medical professionals is very important. In addition, a good knowledge of basic medical science is essential for a deep understanding of genetic diagnosis and electrophysiology. As President, I will do my utmost to ensure the unbiased development of our Society, which has such diverse aspects.

As the fourth President, I have tackled the following various issues over the past two years with the cooperation and efforts of the Board of Directors, delegates, and other members of the Society. However, all of them are still in the middle of being carried out, and we will continue to promote them further.

  1. The Society has several world-class registries, such as the J-AB Registry and the J-LEX Registry, and the aim is to register all cases of catheter ablation and lead extraction. In order to plan and execute such registry studies promptly, we have established a Research Ethics Review Committee within the Society. In the future, we plan to disseminate these valuable pieces of data not only domestically but also internationally, and to build a reliable database led by the IT/Database Committee that will be used for post-marketing surveillance of ablation devices and other products.
  2. With the start of the new medical specialist system, the Medical Specialty System Committee created a WG to create a platform for Arrhythmia Specialists in collaboration with the Cardiovascular Medicine Specialty Program. In the future, we plan to further promote this and establish a system that allows cardiologists to smoothly obtain Arrhythmia Specialists.
  3. We are renewing our website, creating new content, and building an application for arrhythmia treatment to provide information to patients and members of the Society. We will also create educational video content and distribute it at Theatre JHRS and Veritas JHRS, video facilities on our website, to get young physicians (majors, initial residents, and medical students) interested in arrhythmias. We would also like to be even more proactive in raising awareness about COVID-19 to the Society members through the COVID-19 Task Force and about smoking cessation and prevention of cardiogenic strokes and sudden cardiac death through the activities of the Prevention Committee.
  4. Regarding a shortage of drugs such as quinidine, the Health Insurance Committee has held discussions and submitted written requests, etc. to the MHLW and PMDA, and the Society is also actively working on this issue. The Medical Safety Committee and the Implantable Device Committee will continue to promptly provide safety information on medical devices such as arrhythmia devices.
  5. As for the Journal of Arrhythmia (JOA), an official journal of JHRS, the positive activities of the Editor-in-Chief have borne fruit, and the pending acquisition of an Impact Factor (IF) is scheduled to happen in June 2023. In the future, we will try to publish higher quality papers to improve the IF.
  6. In order to demonstrate the presence of our Society overseas, we will be more actively involved than ever in joint sessions, joint guidelines, consensus statements, etc. with overseas arrhythmia societies through the International Exchange Committee.
  7. In order to further develop the Society on an ongoing basis, it is more important than ever to foster young physicians who aspire to become arrhythmia specialists, to actively involve female physicians, to promote exchange between basic medical scientists and clinicians, and to push forward with translational research. The Future Vision Review Committee will collectively compile proposals from the subcommittees related to these issues and strive to have the ideas take shape.

As the fifth president of the JHRS, I will work together with the members of the Society to establish a new organization that respects the traditions of the Society built up over its 40-year history and looks forward to the next generation.

We look forward to your warm guidance and support.

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