Abstract
It is my honor and privilege to pen these words for the debut issue of Indian Journal of Clinical Cardiology (IJCC), the quarterly official journal of Telangana State Chapter of Cardiological Society of India. This is a journal conceived by the esteemed organization, with the lofty intentions of promoting research and encouraging publications from this part of the country.
Research and clinical practice are often visualized as two non-congruous entities, while in reality, clinical research is perceiving and identifying problems in practice, finding solutions, and finally, documenting and communicating them to the peers. Heterogeneity of practice patterns, and variations in disease demographics pre-empt the emergence of ubiquitous solutions to clinical problems. It becomes imperative that we ensure that regional research is promoted to fill the vacuum of knowledge to solve our diagnostic and therapeutic dilemmas. Our in-depth understanding of the rheumatic heart disease and the gratifying outcomes of mitral commissurotomy are illustrative examples of the effectiveness of focused work in 1980s. In this millennium, the challenge of collecting epidemiological data of cardiovascular mortality in this vast country was obviated with the adoption of non-conventional tools like verbal autopsy. This was a pointer that methods not routinely employed in the Western world may, in fact, be the solution to the obstacles we face. The data on acute coronary syndromes have ratified our clinical feel that CAD in our country hits the young and therapy is not quickly, easily, and uniformly available. This laid the foundation for the emergence of STEMI programs in some parts of our country, which will eventually be implemented at a national level.
It is not likely that opportunities to identify novel solutions to cardiovascular problems with high regional incidence have exhausted. On the contrary, the opportunities are tremendous, provided by large heterogeneity of clinical presentation and treatment strategies our practice provides. It is within the realm of every clinician to observe, record, analyze, and share these. There is something to learn from every case; likewise, there is also something to teach from the clinical practice of every region. At the same time, the challenges to research in the current environment of practice cannot be left unemphasized. Conducting research that largely stems out of self-motivation and is most often unlinked to the professional growth in the area of practice is not an easy endeavor.
With these ideas, we present the first issue of IJCC.
I hope that cardiologists and fellows in training from the state feel encouraged to actively contribute to this Journal.