Dear colleagues,

The current year is marked by a high level of activity in our society. More than 700 residents began the two-year course. For the first time in the history of our course, 65 residents from Uruguay and Paraguay are sharing our training program. Our online courses are being attended by 1280 colleagues. Six interdistric conferences have been organized by SAC País. Ten webinars were held with 2700 attendees. Twelve podcasts were uploaded by CARDIO SAC. Fifteen consensus statements and position papers on different cardiology topics are under development. The SAC Manual of Practical Cardiology is being created by our Councils and Areas. Two new registries are being conducted: 1. The MEDITAAR registry, which will determine the diameters and cut-off points of the proximal, mid, and distal abdominal aorta in a cohort of healthy patients in our country, and 2. The REGESTAR registry, a collaborative and intersociety registry on the treatment of aortic stenosis in Argentina. The Argentine Journal of Cardiology has its own web page and an updated, documentary structure. We have released of our new SAC logo and our web page will be more dynamic in the near future, in line with our current timeline. We had a highly active presence in the country's leading media with articles for the community together with the Argentine Foundation of Cardiology and Health Policies. The Instructional Resources Area (ARI) has been disseminating our academic activities through social media. Our members have made notable contributions at international congresses and events, including the ACC, SIAC, and those held by the Uruguayan, Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Venezuelan Societies. Please accept my apologies if I have omitted any other details.

I would like to make a special mention to the Diagnostic Imaging Congress which was organized by our Councils of Diagnostic Imaging, Technicians, Pediatric Cardiology and Congenital Heart Diseases. This year, the Congress was held in a new venue and had a record attendance of 1600 registered participants. The program was of the highest quality and the Congress has become one of the most important events in the specialty in America.

On Thursday morning, the first day of the congress, I was discussing with a colleague the positive atmosphere and energy of the attendees as they moved from room to room. I observed young cardiologists who were perhaps presenting their first e-poster, or friends or fellow workers chatting casually in the rest area while drinking a coffee. We concurred that, with this universe of women and men, with so much desire to learn, work and progress, we Argentines do not deserve to have a country in this situation. Or rather we do not deserve a political leadership that has contributed to a serious structural decline over the past few decades.

The current economic situation has resulted in an impoverishment of our country. We are world champions of inflation. Our country is placed 66^th out of 67 countries in the global competitiveness index. Our healthcare system is broken, and it has never been a political priority for any government. We demand access to first-world medicine that nobody wants to pay. Indeed, we, the SAC (along with 35 other scientific societies), have been sued for cartelization by a consumer association for attempting to defend a fair consultation fee. It is our intention to continue working towards this goal. We are experiencing a number of different simultaneous inflationary processes, which are affecting all the spheres of our daily lives. People speak of winners and losers in these economic processes. Strange, isn't it? I certainly know two losers: patients and workers...including healthcare workers... that is, all of us. From the SAC, we have been working with the group Cardiología Unida, which brings together the country's leading scientific societies and colleges, as well as 57 other scientific societies that make up Sociedades Médicas Unidas, a group focused on producing changes. It is a challenging undertaking in a country where there is a lack of intermediaries. We have made some progress. The scientific societies are among the few institutions that can still be relied upon in our country. We want all cardiologists to engage in policy-making wherever they are, implementing actions that will benefit the common good. And from the SAC, we are pleased to offer you a platform for a constructive struggle, with a focus on consensus-building and the multiplication of efforts that will allow us to provide tools that will help to build new solutions after so many years of decline.

Víctor Mauro ^MTSAC,  
President of the Argentine Society of Cardiology