The purpose of JSE is to contribute to the promotion of human health through stepping up　the level of cardiovascular healthcare or health research by committing excellence to support the research of the cardiovascular ultrasound science and to educate our members　about the patient care using the ultrasound, in Japan.

Japanese Society of Echocardiography

President's Greeting

Greetings from President Kazuhiro Yamamoto

April, 2020

Dear Colleagues
  In the next two years, I will serve as the 7th President of the Japanese Society of Echocardiography (ASE). Since the establishment of JSE in November 1989, JSE has been chaired by Dr. Junichi Yoshikawa, Dr. Kunio Miyatake, Dr. Shintaro Beppu, Dr. Kiyoshi Yoshida, Dr. Katsu Takenaka, and Dr. Satoshi Nakatani, all of whom have made great achievements in the field of echocardiography, and I feel a great deal of pressure to take over the baton.
  Here, I would like to express my thoughts on the relationship between academic societies and medicine. Mr. Katsuya Nomura, one of the most famous baseball player and manager, said, "Baseball depends on one minute of energy, one minute of strength, and the remaining eight minutes of brain. In sports such as baseball, people tend to think that physical strength and skill determine the result, but "thinking" is actually the most important thing. Just as medicine is a science, "thinking" is much more important than small-scale technology. Research provides an opportunity to deepen one's thinking and education provides an opportunity to think. We believe that our major mission is to contribute to medical science and clinical practice through the promotion of research and education.

Contribution to the promotion of research
  I believe that the greatest role of the Society is to contribute to clinical practice through the promotion of research.
  Echocardiography is a clinical tool that is required not only in cardiology, pediatric cardiology, and cardiovascular surgery, but also in many other departments. In recent years, the number of elderly patients has increased and the rate of cardiac complications has become higher, and there is a growing need to address complications in the treatment of non-cardiac diseases. In addition, the field of onco-cardiology has been newly established because of the problem of cardiac dysfunction occurring at a certain frequency in drug therapy for malignant tumors. In these practices, echocardiographic evaluation is the first step in the process.
  Thus, although echocardiography is widely and routinely used, it is not a mature field. There are still areas where progress is desired and unmet needs exist, and it is hoped that the research will continue. It goes without saying that the results of continued research will open up new avenues and contribute to the improvement of the level of clinical practice. On the other hand, I think it is important to think and discuss in the process of research in addition to the results of research. Reading the data deeply and thinking about it will lead to a deeper interpretation of the echocardiographic data whether or not the research results can be obtained, and if it can be used in daily practice, it will lead to an improvement in the level of practice.
  Also, research is the process of introducing answers by putting up questions, building up facts and come up with a coherent story, which is the same process that is required in the daily practice approach to patients. We believe that if you can further refine this ability through your studies, you will be able to improve yourself.
  JSE aims to help promote research that is essential to maintain and improve the level of clinical practice. I believe that the annual scientific meeting of JSE is a place where medical professionals conducting research get together, have repeated discussions, deepen their thinking, enhance each other's knowledge, and contribute to the promotion of research. I hope that many people will attend it. At the same time, the publication of them as an article makes it possible to keep the results of the research for eternity as well as to expand opportunities to deepen discussions by sharing the results with many people, including overseas. JSE has an English-language journal called the Journal of Echocardiography. We would like to invite you to submit your research results to this journal so that not only current medical professionals but also future medical professionals can always have an opportunity to refer to and think about them.

Contribution to the education
  “The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education" (by John Dewey), and I think the society is expected to contribute to education by providing information to medical people who are studying for themselves. In addition to annual scientific meetings, JSE holds workshops four times a year as a forum for such activities. In our seminars, we do not only provide information and techniques that have been established as evidence and that can be used immediately from tomorrow, but we also take up themes that are still under discussion in order to give attendees the opportunity to think about them in various ways. We believe that this will help us to approach patients from multiple perspectives in our daily practice. We will continue to incorporate measures that will enable us to provide information widely in the future, such as the introduction of live webcasts for the 2020 summer workshop to facilitate the attendance of people from far-flung areas.

  I would like to make efforts as the President of the Society so that we can be of service to you as you seek to grow yourselves, and I would appreciate your support and guidance.

Respectfully yours

Kazuhiro Yamamoto, MD, PhD
President of the Japanese Society of Echocardiography
(Professor and Chairman, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, and Endocrinology and Metabolism, Faculty of Medicine, Tottori University)

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