Allan L. Klein, MD, FRCP (C), FACC, FAHA, FESC, FASE

I am very excited about becoming your 27 ^th President of the American Society of Echocardiography (and I am not President William Taft from Ohio!). It is a great honor and privilege to be able to serve over 16,500 members of this organization. On this page, I would like to give you a sense of who I am, where I come from, and what I stand for. I would like to emphasize the value of teamwork in making the ASE the most vibrant cardiology subspecialty organization.

As most of you may know, I hail from your northern exposure, Canada. More specifically, I grew up in a small town called Shawinigan Falls, Quebec. This town is famous for being the home of the former Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chretien. I moved to Montreal when I was 5 years old and spent many formative years there, mainly skating up and down the ice playing hockey (not floor hockey, but the type where you have to keep your head-up). I went to McGill University for medical school and did training in internal medicine in Toronto and Montreal. I then went on to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute for cardiology training and then to the Mayo Clinic to do an echo research fellowship. Subsequently, I left one Clinic for another and landed at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland where I have remained for over 27 years. You may guess that I like cold places! So how did a kid from Shawinigan Falls end up as President of the ASE? Let me tell you how.

Throughout my medical training and hockey days, I have always worked very hard not by myself but with the use of teamwork. I was also very fortunate to have some excellent mentors along the way (Drs. Don Beanlands and Kwon Chan at the University of Ottawa, Jamil Tajik and Jim Seward at the Mayo Clinic, and Bill Stewart, Jim Thomas and Eric Topol at the Cleveland Clinic). It also doesn’t hurt to have Dr. Liv Hatle teaching you the difference between constriction and restriction in the early days of “Diastology.”

I recognized early on in my career that the ASE was going to be my future home. Over the years, this society has given me great opportunities to work and chair many important committees and flourish. I was very fortunate to receive several ASE research awards that allowed me to complete the ACUTE study, which has allowed cardiologists to change clinical practice using transesophageal echocardiography guided cardioversion for atrial fibrillation. Without being on many sports teams, having excellent mentorship during cardiology training, performing committee work on ASE, or working with many investigators around the world in clinical trials, none of this important work would have been completed. Enough about me already! Let’s talk about the ASE and its goals.

In February 2016, we completed a strategic planning meeting in Tucson, Arizona where board, committee, and council members, past presidents, and staffers congregated to work on “tweaking” our tactics for the Society’s 3-year strategic plan. I used a recent book called “The Boys in the Boat” as an introduction into team building, leadership training, and lessons learned. I will briefly recap the premise of the book. It tells the story of 9 working class rowers from the University of Washington in 1936, who despite all odds, went on to win Olympic gold in Berlin, Germany. It was very inspirational how this could be accomplished, and it relates to the strong teamwork of these rowers who worked as a unit. Each attendee at the Tucson meeting relayed a personal vignette regarding what it was like to be on a team or club or in a family that worked in moving their “boat” forward. The leadership training and team building focused on lessons learned like “A great team must share a vision,” “Overcoming adversity makes a team stronger,” “Excellence comes from focus,” and “Goals must be aligned across the entire team,” to name a few aphorisms. The executive committee, board of directors, Council steering committees, task force chairs and members as well as the ASE staff have to work together as a unit and to have their “mind in the boat” to make this a great society. Every key member has to have a shared vision and a common goal to move this society forward. Some of the initiatives that came out of the meeting include action items like improving the ASE website, working on a curriculum for Point of Care users, organizing an echo and outcomes-based registry, investing in structural heart disease educational programs, and funding international normal-based outcomes research.

In summary, as your 27 ^nd president, I am ready to move the ASE forward not myself but with the use of teams of active, focused ASE volunteer members working like “boys (and girls) in the boat” in the coming year.

Allan L. Klein, MD, FRCP (C), FACC, FAHA, FESC, FASE, is the Director of the Center for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pericardial Disease and Staff Cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. He is married to Marilyn Klein (another Canuck) and has 3 big kids (video game producer, accountant, and one who will be a pediatric cardiologist). In his leisure time, Dr. Klein enjoys reading, traveling, hiking, cycling, hockey, and having fun!!