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J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2001;122:413-418
© 2001 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

Presidential Address

Presidential address: Changing boundaries

From The International Medical Group, Washington, DC.

Received for publication May 22, 2001. Accepted for publication May 24, 2001. Address for reprints: James L. Cox, MD, President, The World Heart Foundation, 1828 L St, NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20036-5104.

	Introduction

 
During the past year, two pioneers in cardiac surgery died—Dr René Favaloro of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Dr Will Sealy of Duke University. Dr Favaloro was the father of coronary bypass surgery and Dr Sealy was the father of cardiac arrhythmia surgery. It is rare that a specialty loses two giants of their magnitude in the span of only a few months. I would like to dedicate this presidential address to both of them.

History has taught us that the best way to prepare for the future is to study and understand the lessons of the past. The first time I traveled through Europe several years ago, I was struck by how close together the medieval castle ruins seemed to be now that most of the forests have been cleared away. Once, invisible boundaries surrounded each of those castles, boundaries that were defended to the death. But those boundaries eventually dissolved because technology ultimately made the castles themselves obsolete and then the boundaries became meaningless.

Today's geographical boundaries are also becoming the victims of technology and will be progressively less important to our future. Our economy is now global, air travel has shrunk the size of our world, and the Internet is demanding one international language. In fact, we now sit astride what I believe to be the next major "redefinition of boundaries" that will dominate our cultural, financial, educational, and sociological development during the next millennium. Yet, as all these global trends are evolving, the educational disparity between wealthy and poor countries is actually increasing in magnitude. H. G. Wells once said, "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." Wells never dreamed that the relatively simple society of his day would look like ours today.

A few months ago, Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry, a . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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