Prof. Frank Cecchi is the President of the AICARM Onlus Association, founded together with Prof. Olivotto and other colleagues and patients in December 2019.
Prof. Cecchi was medical director from 1979 to 2011 of the Careggi and Meyer Hospital in Florence, from 2005 to 2011 Associate Professor of Cardiology at the University of Florence and from 2012 to 2019 Contract Professor at the S. Raffaele University (Milan).
He began following patients with cardiomyopathy in 1977, started collaborations in Italy, Europe, the United States, Egypt and Qatar, creating a network of cardiologists, geneticists, physiologists, cardiac surgeons, and arrhythmologists. With Prof. Olivotto since 1992, they have promoted and carried out numerous researches with other centres, introduced new therapies for patients with hypertrophic and dilated cardiomyopathy, organized various national and international courses and conferences on the subject.
In 2014, Prof. Cecchi actively participated in the drafting of the Guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology for Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, largely derived also from the experience in Florence.
Message from the President on the occasion of the Association's assembly in March 2023
Just three years ago, when we started the adventure of creating Aicarm, I never imagined what we've managed to build. In other words, a body with a solid administrative and operational structure, high-profile international ties and dozens of capable volunteers, who have given life to many present and future projects. I am particularly grateful to this staff who collaborate with energy, intelligence and passion. That's it; I couldn't imagine it and instead it happened. I would also like to mention the contribution of the communication structure of Aicarm which periodically gives life to a newsletter dedicated to our members and patients. It illustrates the progress and advances in research in the field of cardiomyopathies, the treatments and the activities of the association. Last in order of arrival in the field of communication, the result of an intense collective work, is "Il Cuore grande", a narrative medicine book soon to be published, which contains the stories of patients who wanted to tell themselves: with their fears, and their will to live. Reading their vicissitudes we realize what it really means to face and not surrender to this disease.
I also thank all those who believed and believe in this project. They too have favored the emergence of a long underestimated problem, shedding light on a pathology not fully understood even by the medical establishment.
We already have many projects for the future, but there is one aspect that we will try to pay particular attention to. I am referring to the ability to interact positively with the institutions, with the aim of implementing some legislative deficiencies, relating, for example, to the recognition of disability and the renewal of licenses, as well as recognizing a network of excellence in the field of cardiomyopathies. The management of this disease is a public matter, and we would like a law capable of facilitating the journey of each patient to be born: to help them find the best skills for managing their own form of cardiomyopathy. In short, we would like to work to simplify every complex aspect of these people's lives, and help them to lighten those heavy problems that surround their existence.
Aicarm is here for them.