Judge a Book by Its Cover, Please

TY - JOUR

T1 - Judge a Book by Its Cover, Please

AU - Jacobs, Marshall L.

N1 - Funding Information: Jacobs Marshall L. MD Editor-in-Chief, WJPCHS, Center for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Diseases, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio 1 2011 2 1 7 8 © The Author(s) 2011 2011 The Author(s) The very common English idiom “don’t judge a book by its cover” is a metaphorical phrase that means “don’t try to determine the worth of something based on its appearance.” My efforts to discover the origins of this commonly used phrase were not terribly productive. It is not attributable to Confucius (“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it”) nor Plato (“The beginning is the most important part of the work”) nor Voltaire (“Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers”) nor Mahatma Gandhi (“I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers!”). The best attribution I could come up with credits Chicago blues musician Willie Dixon (1915-1992) with writing a song titled, “You Can’t Judge a Book by Looking at Its Cover.” The song was a popular recording by guitarist-vocalist Bo Diddley in 1952. With this first issue of Volume 2 of World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery , we suggest that you disregard Bo Diddley’s seemingly wise admonition and ask that you do judge a book by its cover, please. Please take notice of the cover art. The front of each issue of Volume 1 was adorned with an anatomically correct depiction of a normal heart, beautifully drawn by medical illustrator Rachid Idriss. Consistent with our plan to refresh the cover image from time to time, this new volume is adorned with Idriss' artistic interpretation of a heart with transposition of the great arteries. “Transposition” was the subject of a symposium organized by the World Society for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery that took place during a multisocietal joint meeting honoring Dr. Aldo Castañeda, held July 15-17, 2010, in Antigua, Guatemala. The meeting, which attracted more than 200 participants, was jointly sponsored by the following organizations: World Society for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery European Congenital Heart Surgeons Association Congenital Heart Surgeons' Society Society of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery “Aldo R. Castañeda” Sociedad Latina de Cardiología y Cirurgía Cardiovascular Pediátrica Asociación Mexicana de Especialistas en Cardiopatías Congénitas Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia Cardiovascular (Departmento de Cirurgia Cardiovascular Pediátrica) Sociedade Brasileira de Cardiologia (Departmento de Cardiología Pediátrica) Sociedad Colombiana de Cardiología y Cirugía Cardiovascular Associación Guatemalteca de Cardiología Fundación Aldo Castañeda The meeting honored Dr. Castañeda on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Celebrating Dr. Castañeda’s enormous contributions as teacher and innovator, one could of course not overlook the important seminal experience with neonatal arterial switch surgery as definitive therapy for the most common variant of transposition of the great arteries, with intact ventricular septum. 1 Among the large group of distinguished individuals who honored Aldo by their participation in the meeting were Adib Jatene, who in 1975 reported the first successful anatomic correction of transposition of the great vessels (arterial switch operation), 2 and Sir Magdi Yacoub, who performed arterial switch repair of transposition of the great arteries with ventricular septal defect in 1976 3 and also that year introduced 2-stage anatomic correction of simple transposition of the great arteries. 4 The proceedings of the WSPCHS Symposium on Transposition of the Great Arteries make up a substantial section of this issue of the World Journal, covering subjects related to the entire spectrum of transposition complexes, including congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries. It is our hope that this compendium of articles by a distinguished faculty of clinicians and scholars will provide enjoyable, informative reading and serve as an important educational reference for clinicians in all parts of the world engaged in the care of patients with congenital heart disease. That having been said, please do judge this book by its cover, as the superb artistic representation of a heart with transposed great arteries presages a unique and excellent collection of articles and essays that are found between the covers. Marshall L. Jacobs, MD Editor-in-Chief, WJPCHS Center for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Diseases, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio

PY - 2011/1

Y1 - 2011/1

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84990341312&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84990341312&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/2150135110388672

DO - 10.1177/2150135110388672

M3 - Editorial

AN - SCOPUS:84990341312

SN - 2150-1351

VL - 2

SP - 7

EP - 8

JO - World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Hearth Surgery

JF - World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Hearth Surgery

IS - 1

ER -