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From the President's Desk

Trustees, Technology, and Trends

04 April 2025 (Last updated: 4 Apr 2025 11:11)

From the President’s desk – Trustees, Technology, and Trends

This week I chaired my first Trustees meeting as President of SCTS. It was a pleasure to have the whole senior leadership team and most of our Trustees present. This milestone was one that invited both reflection and forward planning.

We presented our annual accounts and were reassured by our auditors that, despite a challenging economic backdrop, the Society is financially stable and that our improvement plans are sound. We’ve taken a prudent approach, and benefits are showing with controlled spending on core activities such as education maintained, while preserving and improving its quality. We have also secured new funding to support and sustain our courses. We continue to have a good financial turnover reflecting the strength of our membership and the continued success of our annual meetings.

A major theme of the meeting was stability and renewal. Our administrative team, after a period of flux, is now on a path towards growth and consistency.

Significantly, we introduced our new strategic vision, built on and developed by the SCTS Senior Leadership Team.

Over the next 2–4 years, we will look to

  • Continue supporting our members, lead innovation and advocacy in cardiothoracic surgery for better patient outcomes.
  • Launch Friends of SCTS to expand patient and public engagement.
  • Review our digital presence.
  • Build a more sustainable financial model aiming to reduce reliance on subscriptions and conference income.

We were also delighted to welcome two new trustees: Justin Nowell (St George’s London) and Professor Stephan Schueler (Newcastle). Their experience and fresh perspectives will be invaluable as we renew and refresh our professional friendships and strengthen ties across the UK.

Clinically, it’s been a lung cancer-focused week—from open resections to MIS segmentectomies. I have also trialled some novel 3D reconstruction software, and the progress in speed, usability, and visualisation especially has been remarkable. To see the power of a laptop-based solution that allows one to manipulate the lung digitally in the way one might in surgery is remarkable in realism, and speed of processing as large uploads to the cloud are not needed.

As we embrace innovation and plan, I’m reminded that the next generation may already be overtaking us. My youngest son recently placed extremely high amongst 1000s in an online gaming tournament. If he ever chooses surgery, he’ll no doubt be navigating the operative field faster than my generation could.

Aman S Coonar
SCTS President

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