2007 Educational Fair Held at the Washington Hospital Center

Attendance is voluntary, but students enrolled in our Accelerated Cardiovascular Technology Training Program (through our affiliation with Howard Community College in Maryland) and less-experienced staff are strongly encouraged to participate. Many of our vendors voluntarily support the fair by underwriting some of the expense, but also by coming in person to set up stations for hands-on demonstrations. Additionally, one or more of our attending physicians will give a talk to the entire assemblage. This year, the fair was held on August 25th, a Saturday morning, from 8:30 am until 12:45 pm. The event was largely coordinated by Deborah Johnson-Mosley, one of our most senior technologists with 25 years of experience. She was enthusiastically assisted by the members of the Educational Fair Committee, cardiovascular technologists Todd Perry and Cassandra Martin. Of course, our manager, Johanna Evans, and our leadership team provided guidance and support as needed. The keynote speaker was Dr. Nelson L. Bernardo, who specializes in both peripheral and coronary interventions. Dr. Bernardo spoke on the abdominal aorta and run-offs. He was followed by senior technologist Anna Medo, who presented a review of cardiac valves. Her presentation included slides of the Sapien (Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, CA) aortic valve, which, as a participating site in the PARTNER (Placement of AoRTic traNscathetER valves) trial, we have successfully implanted in eight aortic stenosis patients since our first case, in June 2007. Participants then went into the labs for two hours to join stations set up and manned by representatives, featuring: Rotoblator and FilterWire (Boston Scientific, Natick, MA), Excimer laser coronary angioplasty (ELCA, Spectranetics Corp., Colorado Springs, CO), Intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) (Datascope Corp., Mahwah, NJ) Angio-Seal (St. Jude Medical, Minnetonka, MN) AngioJet (Possis Medical, Inc., Minneapolis, MN) PercuSurge (Medtronic, Inc., Santa Rosa, CA) Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) (Volcano Corp., Rancho Cordova, CA) Angiomax (The Medicines Company, Parsippany, NJ) Angiosculpt Balloon (AngioScore, Fremont, CA) PressureWire (Radi Medical Systems, Wilmington, MA) A Cordis representative did a general inservice on catheters and wires. Two of our nurses, Clarissa Bunales and Zina Garrin-Cross, also gave an inservice on Nursing Tricks and Tips for the Cath Lab. A continental breakfast was provided in the morning and a hot lunch was provided in the afternoon when participants returned from the stations in the lab. Each vendor supplied a question relevant to his or her product, and the correct answer received a prize. Evaluations collected from the 40 or so participants confirmed that everyone had a good time and gained important knowledge and hands-on practice. We propose that other cath labs adopt this idea of putting on an Education Fair, to raise skills and knowledge in their respective labs. Would you like information or suggestions on how to set up an education fair at your facility? Please contact: Deborah.A.Johnson-Mosley@medstar.net.

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