Opening speech held by Prof. Dr. Erwin Oechslin

Prof. Dr. Erwin Oechslin, MD/GUCH, Professor of Medicine, Director Congenital Cardiac Centre for Adults, Toronto General Hospital, Canada

Prof. Dr. Erwin Oechslin is associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and director of the adult congenital heart disease program, located at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, Canada.

He was born in Einsiedeln (Switzerland) and graduated from the University of Zurich. After completion of his training in internal medicine and adult cardiology, he dedicated his education to congenital heart disease, which included one year training in pediatric cardiology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Zurich (Switzerland) and a two-year fellowship in adult congenital heart disease under the supervision of Dr. Gary Webb, Toronto. He returned to the University Hospital of Zurich in 1998 and restructured the adult congenital heart disease programme.

He moved to Toronto, Canada, in 2006 and succeeded Dr. Gary Webb as director of the adult congenital heart disease programme. He holds the Bitove Family Professorship of Adult Congenital Heart Disease and serves as staff physician in the echo laboratory. He is President of the CACH Network (www.cachnet.ca) and Chair of the WG on Education of the International Society of Adult Congenital Heart Disease (www.isachd.org). He is married to Doris and has three daughters.

Conference Programme

ToughHearts Conference

We are GUCHs, Grown-Ups with Congenital Heart defects. In 1999, we set up our own association in Switzerland, CUORE MATTO, which regularly organises meetings, lectures and seminars for its members who are all affected by a congenital heart defect.

At present, we have the great pleasure to be host of the EuroHearts Conference in Switzerland, the Tough Hearts Conference 2014 which started on July 20th 2014 and ended on Friday 25th 2014.

The Tough Hearts Conference 2014 takes place in Baar in the canton of Zug / Switzerland, and welcomes delegates from many different GUCH-organisations from Europe and around the world.

The Conference Programme includes interesting and informative lectures and round tables of GUCH-specialists and cardiologists, instructive workshops and exciting leisure activities. Being together with GUCHs from so many different places and backgrounds is essential and enriching for all of us.

Beside very concrete medical advice and news concerning GUCH-issues, the Tough Hearts Conference 2014 focuses on the dealing with constraints and sacrifice and the living with pain and emotional distress, all subjects which characterise a life with a congenital defect or disease. The importance of the doctor-patient-relationship and the fact that they learn from each other is also highlighted during this conference.

In addition, the Tough Hearts Conference 2014 is a jubilee conference as it is 20 years since it has taken place for the first time and 10 years for the last time in Switzerland.

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