It is with great pride that we are celebrating this year the 70th anniversary of the Polish Cardiac Society (PCS). At the 28th International PCS Congress held in Katowice on September 19–21, 2024, this event was celebrated (Figure 1).
The current solid position of the Society has been built on efforts and achievements of several eminent clinicians who conceived the idea to create a scientific society focused on cardiac diseases. The first discussion on this topic took place in Poland before the World War II and returned after its end. The first step was the establishment of the Section of Cardiology within the Polish Society of Internal Medicine on January 15, 1950, headed by Prof. Mściwój Semerau-Siemianowski (1885–1953) (Figure 2).
Then on February 28, 1954 in Łódź members of this section decided to transform it into the Polish Cardiac Society. The first Main Board of this new society was elected, including Professors Jerzy Jakubowski, Edmund Żera and Zdzisław Askanas (Figure 3), the so-called Founding Fathers and Prof. Jerzy Jakubowski was the head of this Board. The PCS scientific conference held in Lublin on April 27, 1956, was memorable since at that time a historic decision to join the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) was made. In 1957 an official journal of the PCS, Kardiologia Polska (now Polish Heart Journal) was launched and Prof. Jerzy Jakubowski was appointed its first editor-in-chief.
In the early years regular PCS scientific meetings were held every 3 months in various Polish cities with larger cardiology centers. The first PCS regional divisions were established in Gdańsk, Łódź, Poznań and Wrocław in 1964, while a year later — in Katowice and Kraków. In 2024 there are 17 regional divisions of our Society.
To address the dynamic development of cardiology, specialist working groups of the Society were established, starting from Sections of Social Cardiology, Surgical Cardiology, Experimental Cardiology, and Pediatric Cardiology that worked since 1968. At the same time 5 committees of the Society, namely Publishing Committee, Standardization Commission, Scientific Commission, Postgraduate Education and Specialization Committee, and at last, Awards and Distinctions Committee were established.
The PCS is evolving in line with new advances in terms of organization, therapeutic challenges and population changes, as reflected by 14 Committees, 7 Associations, 14 Working Groups and the “Club 30” for the most successful early career cardiologists interested in research. This Club was initiated in 1993 by Prof. Leszek Ceremużyński, president of the PCS. In 2001 the Main Board decided to create the Polish Heart House as the headquarters of PCS, which has been located in Warsaw since 2002 at Stawki Street, a good symbol of the Society’s prestige and aspirations.
The measure of the success of the PCS is an increasing number of its members. In 1966, the PCS had 550 members, while in 2024 it had 5460, including also nurses and technicians willing to support the Society initiatives.
The recognition of the Polish cardiology at the European level has been highlighted by functions of eminent PCS members. Prof. Witold Rużyłło was the first Polish cardiologist elected to the Board of the ESC and served as Secretary/Treasurer of the ESC Board in the years 1994–1998. Two years later, this function was taken over by Prof. Michał Tendera, who was elected President of the ESC in the 2004–2006 term. The members of the ESC Management Board were Prof. Adam Torbicki — Vice-President of the ESC (2010–2012) and Councillor of the ESC Board (2008–2010), and Prof. Piotr Ponikowski — Secretary/Treasurer of the ESC Board (2014–2016) and Councillor of the ESC Board (2012–2014), also both former Presidents of our Society. Within the recent 10 years other PCS members were appointed to prestigious positions in the ESC such as Prof. Dariusz Dudek — President of the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (2020–2022), Prof. Piotr Pruszczyk — Chairperson ESC Working Group on Pulmonary Circulation & Right Ventricular Function (2020–2022), Prof. Izabella Uchmanowicz — President of the Association of Cardiovascular Nursing & Allied Professions (2022–2024), Prof. Tomasz Guzik — Councillor of the ESC Board (2020–2022) and Chair Research & EU Projects Committee (2022–2024), and Prof. Piotr Szymański — Chair Regulatory Affairs Committee of the ESC (2022–2024).
The recent 10 years have marked an unprecedented success of Kardiol Pol (Pol Heart J). Several quality changes implemented in 2018, such as the use of the widely recognized Editorial Manager system, anti-plagiarism evaluation, introduction of short communications for preliminary studies and English versions of the PCS position statements, shortening of the average time from submission to first decision to about 25 days, and to the final one 52 days, resulted in the 2023 two-year Impact Factor of 3.7, which is the top quartile in cardiology. In 2015 this bibliometric parameter was 0.878 (the third quartile in the discipline). The PCS journal has become one of the leading European cardiology journals, which shows a huge potential for the cardiology community in Poland. To disseminate knowledge among all Polish physicians who manage patients with cardiovascular diseases, in 2019 Educational Issues of Kardiol Pol (Pol Heart J), which contain ESC guidelines, position papers and expert opinions in Polish only were launched. It is noteworthy that although the number of society journals is gradually decreasing worldwide due to the commercialization of medical publishing, Kardiol Pol (Pol Heart J) still belongs to the Society and is thriving.
The PCS has had and still has a great influence on the development of cardiology in Poland. The PCS regularly organizes annual meetings, conferences and scientific symposia devoted to current challenges in cardiology. Such activities have a huge impact on the dissemination of modern knowledge, the education of specialists, and thus on the improvement of the care of patients with heart diseases. Committees, Associations and Working Groups of the PCS play an important role in the development of cardiology in Poland, initiating new research areas and proposing innovative therapies for Polish patients. As part of its activities in Poland, the PCS has managed, among others, to create a 24-hour emergency service for patients with acute coronary syndromes based on over 160 interventional cardiology centers evenly distributed throughout Poland. Currently, the network of pulmonary embolism interventional treatment centers (Pulmonary Embolism Response Team [PERT]) is being expanded. Most recently, a national program for the treatment of patients with cardiogenic shock is expected to be launched soon.
On the 70th birthday of the PCS, let’s celebrate its great achievements and wish it even more success in the years to come. This Society means all its members and supporters, in the past, present, and future, younger and older, at various levels of professional or academic career. How the Society will look like in 2025 and beyond depends on us, our commitment, our vision, and our concepts. We as the members of the PCS strive for better care in cardiac diseases, for excellence in daily practice, and recognition for our hard work.
Article information
Conflict of interest: None declared.
Funding: None.
Open access: This article is available in open access under Creative Common Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, which allows downloading and sharing articles with others as long as they credit the authors and the publisher, but without permission to change them in any way or use them commercially. For commercial use, please contact the journal office at polishheartjournal@ptkardio.pl
