It has been my privilege to help represent the ACHD community during the past 2 years that I have been president of our society. We remain a small society, yet wield influence because of the importance of our mandate and the wisdom of those who established ISACCD as a voice for ACHD, at a time when there was no organized voice.

I had the luck to join the ISACCD executive board as the wave of ACHD awareness was rising at an accelerating rate. That wave has not crested yet. I wish I were a surfer and the ACHD wave a real wave off Maui, because I think the ACHD wave is looking to be one of those great surfing waves that come once a generation; it would be an amazing ride. Most of us are not surfers, but we can still experience the thrill of riding the ACHD wave over the years to come, ultimately providing us with more satisfaction than the evanescent thrill of the surf.

Major cardiology organizations are paying attention to the needs of our patients and their caregivers. Training programs are growing in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. A new regional ACHD Society is likely to be founded in the Asia-Pacific region this spring. Work is being done in the US, in Europe, and elsewhere on ACHD certification pathways. Patient and family advocacy and support groups have begun to flourish and to take charge of their own destiny.

ISACCD is well-positioned to facilitate, link, catalyze, and support this rising wave. This may mean some structural change. Perhaps we will want to shift from a small organization of individuals willing to volunteer $100 per annum to say we belong, and find a different structure that will more completely encompass the entire ACHD community and help us continue and expand our work. The ACHD world is looking at how to define and organize its constituent parts for the future. ISACCD can play an important, perhaps central, role in that process if you who belong to the Society, and you who share its goals, wish it to.

It will be exciting to see how this develops over the next few years. The analogy to surfing fails here, because a Pacific Ocean wave grows, crests, and eventually falls away in a crash of breakers as it nears shore. In contrast, we can expect the field of Adult Congenital Heart Disease to continue to grow from success to success, from strength to strength, an ever-rising wave.

What a ride!

Jack Colman
President, 2006-2008

P.S. I went to Maui once, last year, for a week. It rained every day. Worst weather in 25 years. I shall stick to ACHD surfing.