Ludwig K. von Segesser: Editor-in-Chief of EJCTS and ICVTS from 2000 to 2010

The European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery (EJCTS) was established in July 1987 as the official scientific publication of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. The first two Editors-in-Chief of the Journal were Professor Hans Borst and Professor Marko Turina. They were very successful in establishing and developing the Journal into a respected and internationally accepted journal in our field. The search for the new Editor-in-Chief began in June 2000 and, after careful review of all applications, Professor von Segesser (Fig. 1 ) was chosen for this prestigious and important post within EACTS for many good reasons. Past Editor-in-Chief Ludwig Karl von Segesser. Ludwig von Segesser graduated from the Medical School of the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 1978 and successfully passed the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (ECFMG, USA) and the Visa Qualifying Examination (VQE, USA). After a three-year period of residencies within the Department of Surgery at Geneva University Hospital (1980–1983), he became a staff member in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Geneva University. In 1985, he passed the ‘Texas State Board of Medical Examiners’ at Austin, TX, USA, and received an Institutional Licence. In 1986, he worked at the Texas Heart Institute under the guidance of Denton A. Cooley MD as a clinical fellow. After his return to Switzerland he moved from Geneva to the Department of Cardio-Vascular Surgery in Zürich in 1987 and became staff member (Oberarzt) in Professor Turina's team. His academic career continued in 1989 when he became Assistant Professor (‘Privat-Dozent’) at the University of Zürich. In 1996, he was elected as Clinical Professor and Head of the Department of Cardio-Vascular Surgery of the University Hospital Vaudois (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland. Professor von Segesser was also elected President of the Swiss Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, President of the Swiss Heart Foundation, and became the Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Anesthesiology of the CHUV, Lausanne in 2005. He is a member of more than 30 scientific societies worldwide, has contributed to more than 1700 publications, of which 678 are listed in PubMed/Medline. His creative and innovative mind is also reflected in more than 10 patents and the many awards he has received over the years [1]. The Editor-in-Chief position is available for a maximum of two terms of five years each. During this period, Ludwig von Segesser established EJCTS as one of the three major scientific journals worldwide in our field. One of the many positive attributes of Ludwig von Segesser – besides many others – is his creative mind and his willingness to accept new ideas and deviate from familiar paths. He adheres to the saying of Galileo ‘In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual’. Or as Mark Twain put it: ‘Most misinterpretations do not come from not knowing something. Most misinterpretations come from accepting something as true which is not’. The ‘hard facts’ of the Journal development under the leadership of Ludwig von Segesser and his team in the Editorial Office (Ian Beecroft, Rita Brightwell, Judy Gaillard) are outstanding: (a) Number of manuscript submissions. (b) Number of pages published. (c) Evolution of ISI impact factor for EJCTS. EJCTS, European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery; ICVTS, Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery. Development of EJCTS and ICVTS EJCTS, European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery; ICVTS, Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery. Development of EJCTS and ICVTS EJCTS, European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery; ICVTS, Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery. Significant increase in pages published in the EJCTS/ICVTS (Fig. 2b, Table 1). Significant increase in the ISI impact factor (Fig. 2c, Table 1). In addition to this unparalleled success in the development of EJCTS [2–10], Ludwig von Segesser launched a second publication in September 2002, Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery (ICVTS). This interactive Journal is available to the reader in both a printed and an online version. Online comments of readers are published together with the original paper, and an active discussion between the authors and the readers is encouraged and facilitated. Ludwig von Segesser and his team are to be congratulated for their outstanding success in the development of our Journal. The Editorial Office and the Editor-in-Chief have reached a level of success not envisaged when the Journal was first launched in July 1987. The European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery thanks Professor von Segesser for his great devotion to EJCTS. We welcome his future advice from his huge body of experience and look forward to a bright future for EJCTS and ICVTS as well as EACTS.