By Andrew Freeman, MD, FACC

Dear Early Career Professional colleagues,

Our ACC has heard us! As early career professionals, the leadership of the College knows just how important we are to the College's future. In addition to supporting initiatives that benefit us directly, they have now created a world class, high-quality publication that will contain important information, practical pearls of knowledge, and special opportunities geared just to us!

As you may already know, in November 2011 the ACC formed an Early Career Professionals (ECP) Council and Section to provide members in their first 7 years out of training with support and resources to address the unique set of challenges in this stage of career stage and professional challenges they face. Our Section provides members with a forum to not only learn, share knowledge, and grow, but also to serve as a voice within the College. And it's a pretty loud voice: there are approximately 7,000 early career members in the ACC!

The ECP Council and Section have been exceptionally active in our inaugural year. Here are just five of the projects we have embarked on:

1. We launched a quarterly e-newsletter in March 2012 featuring highly relevant topics from ECPs about job creation, career development, financial management, and more. Current and archived issues are available at www.CardioSource.org/EarlyCareer.
2. We created a private Facebook group for members to discuss cases, news articles, and more. This is one of the College's first active two-way communication mechanisms.
3. We constructed a toolkit for ACC chapters to support early career members and engage them early on.
4. We are in the process of developing—along with input from other relevant Councils and Sections—a College-wide mentoring program complete with a new mentor database.
5. We have brought a database of research funding opportunities to the entire ACC membership—allowing easy "Google-like" access to grants, awards, fellowships, and more for both the academician and private practitioner.

As you can tell, we're a high energy and ambitious group—and we need your help! Visit www.CardioSource.org/EarlyCareer to connect with us on Facebook and give us feedback on this publication and our other initiatives, including what we can do to make your professional life easier and more successful.

Finally, if you're interested in writing for this publication, or getting more involved in the ACC early career professional council, please email us at: earlycareer@acc.org.

We hope to see you at the ECP Section meeting at ACC.13 on Sunday, March 10, 10:45 AM - 12:15 p.m. in Nob Hill of the San Francisco Marriott Marquis.

Keywords: Financial Management, Fellowships and Scholarships, Mentors, Feedback, Awards and Prizes, Leadership

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