The topic chosen for this conference was a challenging problem for contemporary children's cardiosurgery: multistage surgical management of complex congenital heart anomalies, especially univentricular heart surgery.

Our goal was not to repeat what we already know about this kind of treatment but to focus on the intriguing question: What would give us good, long-lasting results in multistage surgery?

 The occasion for organizing this meeting was unusual yet symbolically significant: this June we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first successful heart operation on a child (16-year-old boy). The boy had been stabbed, and as a result his heart was critically damaged. An excellent Polish surgeon from Warsaw, Jan Borzymowski, who had several times successfully sewed heart wounds in older patients, saved the boy's life. The operation took place on 6th of June, 1908 and was probably the first cardiac surgery on a child! The patient was one Josif Kantor Charitonowicz who was of Russian-Jewish descent.