CC BY 4.0 · Libyan International Medical University Journal 2022; 07(02): 063-066
DOI: 10.1055/s-0042-1758811
Letter to the Editor

The 8th Libyan Cardiac Society Congress Recommendations

Aiman Smer
1   Creighton University, Nebraska, United States
,
2   Tripoli University Hospital, Tripoli, Libya
,
Khalid Ellafi
3   Benghazi University, Benghazi, Libya
,
Ali Neihoum
3   Benghazi University, Benghazi, Libya
,
Hanifa Alrabte
4   Tripoli University, Tripoli, Libya
,
Omar Msalam
5   Almostaqal Almoshreq Center, Tripoli, Libya
› Author Affiliations
Funding None.
 

The Libyan Cardiac Society (LCS) has recently celebrated its 20th anniversary during the society 8th scientific meeting in the Rixos Convention Center in Tripoli, Libya, between July 1st and 3rd, 2022.[1] The 8th LCS Congress was a great success, and we would like to share with you the meeting main highlights and the final recommendations of the 8th LCS Congress.

The 8th LCS Congress is considered one of the largest and most successful scientific meetings in Libya for the year of 2022. It was well attended and received. The scientific and organizing committees have had worked relentlessly for 6 months to organize such event accommodating more than 400 attendees from all over Libya and invited 45 distinguished speakers from Libya, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland, Germany, United States of America, and Canada where more than 60 presentations were given in two lecture halls during the 3 days of the congress. Researchers were also invited to present their science and 40 out of 54 scientific papers were accepted through a peer-review process and presented during the congress either via poster or oral presentations. The best five posters received valuable awards and all presented abstracts will be published in a peer-review journal in special volume for the LCS Congress.

In addition to a robust scientific program, we organized nine workshops in different areas of cardiovascular disease including 3-day basic and advanced life support course in collaboration with the Libyan Emergency Medicine Association. We are pleased that more than 200 physicians and nurses have participated and benefited from these workshops.

The 8th LCS Congress provided unique opportunity for the attendees from all over Libya and abroad to network with colleagues and experts, present their research, attend workshops, and visit the congress exhibition to learn more about the most recent updates in the field of cardiovascular disease. Several local and regional scientific societies have participated in the congress activities to share experience, expertise as well as collaboration for future events. In unprecedented achievement, the 8th LCS Congress has offered for the first time continuous medical education (CME) points in Libya, accredited by the European Board for Accreditation in Cardiology a body affiliated with the European Cardiac Society, which requires high standards of scientific material.

Noteworthy that several sessions were dedicated to discuss important topics related to the management of cardiovascular disease services in Libya with emphasis on the potential positive role of the LCS as a subject matter expert in the field of cardiovascular disease based on more than 20 years of public service experience, members' advanced training and expertise, and large network of cardiovascular healthcare professionals of more than 600 members across Libya and abroad. Herein, the final recommendations of the 8th LCS Congress are as follows:

  1. It is well-established that cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and in Libya with significant burden on the healthcare system. Therefore, we recommend that cardiovascular disease should be given high priority by the healthcare authority and to collaborate with the LCS to establish short- and long-term management strategies, launch national registry for cardiovascular disease, and allocate resources and expertise for programs that aim to prevent, early diagnose, and treat cardiovascular disease by providing essential cardiac services and training to primary care centers as well as continuous support to tertiary cardiac centers across the nation.

  2. Launch national initiative called “Stent of Life” for patients with acute heart attack in which patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction have access to primary percutaneous coronary intervention within the first few hours of the diagnosis. The society urges the healthcare authority to give this recommendation the utmost importance due to its significant impact on saving lives.

  3. Establish specialized cardiac centers for diagnosis and management of rare and complicated heart diseases such as congenital heart disease, both in children and adults and complex cardiac arrhythmia. In addition, it is also important to provide the necessary training and support to the healthcare personal in these specialties.

  4. Launch the society's acute myocardial infarction registry initiative in collaboration with the National Center for Disease Control and World Health Organization office in Libya. We believe that the registry should provide accurate data on the extent of acute myocardial infraction in the nation, current practices, and disease outcome across healthcare centers in Libya. The registry should also serve as a quality improvement tool and reliable resource to healthcare management policies.

  5. Support the National Center for Health System Reform program to improve the healthcare system in Libya and to use the society expertise in selecting the cardiac services needed for each level of care, primary, secondary, and tertiary centers in this proposed program.

  6. Urge the healthcare and higher education institutions to support the CME programs to improve the quality of the healthcare professionals by encouraging them to use the available funds for improvement and development for reliable learning resources that support CME credits. We also recommend and willing to collaborate to establish national CME accreditation program.

  7. The society' members expressed their interest to collaborate with healthcare authorities in all cities of Libya to organize various scientific and educational activities such as seminars, workshops, training courses and prepare national guidelines documents in the area our expertise to improve the quality of healthcare professionals and raise public awareness about cardiovascular disease in Libya.

  8. Invite the Libyan experts abroad to participate in local scientific activities similar to the LCS 8th Congress and visiting professor program to build collaborative relationship among cardiologists and cardiac surgeons inside and outside Libya and to recruit them for providing cardiac services in Libya. The society membership database can be useful to provide an accurate list of Libyan cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, and cardiac anesthesiologists abroad who are interested to participate in such initiatives.

  9. Recognize the LCS as house of expertise in the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Higher Education for direct communication and provide professional consultation on matters related to the field of cardiovascular disease in which the society offers unparallel local expertise and experience over two decades in this field with more than 600 members across Libya and abroad.

  10. Designate offices for the LCS and other active medical societies listed in the Libyan Authority for Scientific Research to be able to work efficiently and achieve their goals to improve quality of healthcare professionals and raise public awareness.

  11. Provide standard mechanisms and open channel of communications between the Libyan Authority for Scientific Research and Ministry of Health Office for local and international exhibitions and conferences and other suppurative institutions to raise funding and provide logistical support for the society annual scientific meeting.

  12. The 9th LCS Congress will be held in the city of Benghazi in December 2023.

Finally, we would like to thank all individuals and institutions who have had supported this major scientific event and looking forward for their participation in the next meeting to support science, promote research, and provide medical training.

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Conflict of Interest

None declared.

Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge the members of the scientific and organizing committees as well as the congress volunteers for their invaluable contribution to the 8th LCS congress.


Address for correspondence

Aiman Smer, MBBCh
Creighton University
Nebraska 68022
United States   

Publication History

Article published online:
21 December 2022

© 2022. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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