A Multi-disciplinary Approach: New Cardiovascular Horizons and the SICP RCIS Review Course

As NCVH enters its 8th year, what do those health care and cath lab professionals who have never attended the conference need to know? And why should they attend in 2007? As you noted, this year will mark the 8th annual New Cardiovascular Horizons (NCVH) conference. It has grown to be one of the largest international multidisciplinary conferences in existence, with an anticipated 3,500 participants, 150 eminent faculty and 150 industry sponsors. Highlights of the 4-day event include: 3 days of live cases from our Cardiovascular Institute of the South (CIS) cath labs; 3rd Annual International Multidisciplinary Critical Limb Ischemia (CLI) Summit with multiple complex live limb salvage cases; Inaugural Peripheral Vascular Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA) Session in partnership with the Society of Cardiovascular Computerized Tomography (SCCT) Inaugural Michael E. DeBakey Veteran's Health Administration Cardiovascular Symposium and multiple other sessions highlighting peripheral vascular disease 2nd Annual Global Endovenous and DVT Summit Sessions for diabetes, podiatry and wound care professionals. A special session in partnership with the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC), to address the Disparities in the Cardiovascular and Diabetic Care in the minority population. NCVH has become a true multidisciplinary and multicultural conference. In our partnership with the Society of Invasive Cardiovascular Professionals (SICP), we have created a special review course session which will be of particular interest. The NCVH conference will not only focus on sessions for the physician, but also offers sessions for the registered nurse, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, cath lab professionals and cardiovascular (CV) administrators. Sessions include comprehensive CV and diabetic nursing sessions on September 7th and 8th. NCVH has specifically been organized to provide all necessary yearly continuing medical education credits (CMEs) or continuing education units (CEUs) for all specialties. We take pride in having the most diverse audience of any conference in existence. The conference takes place in New Orleans, which has made a great comeback since Hurricane Katrina. All is well in New Orleans and the downtown areas important to our conference are even better than ever. Not only is our conference known for its scientific and educational content, but we have plenty of time for New Orleans-style entertainment, jazz cocktail receptions, great food and drinks, as well as our own Horizons Mardi Gras Parade for our attendees. The SICP is offering a review course within the 4-day NCVH conference. Why is it important for allied health professionals to attend these courses? The SICP review course offered at NCVH 2007 is the Registered Cardiovascular Invasive Specialist (RCIS) Exam Review. The review course is set to begin immediately after lunch September 5-7, leaving the Wednesday through Friday morning schedule open for the SICP members to attend. It also will allow allied health attendees to participate in the breakfast and lunch symposia, as well as the reviewers to sit in and participate on the majority of the morning live case transmissions from CIS on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The SICP audience will also have the opportunity to attend other multidisciplinary lectures somewhat out of their own day-to-day routine, in critical limb ischemia, wound care, diabetology, general cardiology, etc. You would be surprised to know how many attendees comment that they actually learn more by going to these types of sessions. By Saturday, the review sessions will be complete and the SICP attendees are free to enjoy the full-day Horizons Cath Lab Tech & Nurse Symposium with prominent SICP faculty including Lynne Jones, Marsha Holton, Todd Chitwood, Ken Gorski and Thomas Maloney, as well as other noted faculty. Breakfast and lunch symposia will also be offered on Saturday. Several other interesting Saturday sessions include the Renaissance Summit and hands-on workshops, featuring faculty such as Drs. Tom Fogarty and Ted Diethrich. The Renaissance Summit's main focus will be on Reinventing the Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeon. We are now embarking upon an era in which all of our professions will start to blend and soon traditional OR professionals and traditional cath lab professionals will be working more closely together. NCVH offers unmatched multidisciplinary education, all at a great DISCOUNT for SICP members. Just the food and beverage during 4 days of breakfast and lunch symposia along with the entertainment in New Orleans is well worth the price. NCVH has developed a reputation for performing challenging live cases. Can you tell us what to expect this year? The majority of our live cases are primarily dedicated to the complex endovascular treatment of peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Live cases will start almost immediately on Wednesday, September 5th. There will be 2 hours of live cases from CIS that will be a part of the Master's Laser and Cryoplasty Symposium. Naturally, we will be concentrating primarily on these two technologies, but we all know that the treatment of infrainguinal PAD often requires the addition of many of our new CLI tools. Our operators stand ready to perform a half dozen or so complex CLI cases during the opening day session. These cases will be mixed in with didactic lectures presented by some of the world's leading authorities who utilize laser, cryoplasty and CLI interventional technology. Likewise, the moderators and live case panel will also include an experienced collection of interventionalists from around the world. The 3rd Annual International CLI Summit on September 6th will provide over 2 hours of live CLI cases from CIS, likely the most challenging live cases during the 4-day event. In 2006, I heard that the CLI Summit was standing room only crowd. What can we expect for the 3rd Annual CLI Summit in 2007? The International CLI Summit has gained notoriety because of its internationally-known faculty, diverse topics and agenda appropriate for interventionalists, surgeons, podiatrists, wound care specialists, etc. The summit is appropriate for the entire multidisciplinary team required to salvage a limb. Faculty include such renowned worldwide leaders as Drs. Giancarlo Biamino, Dierk Scheinert, Tony Das, Andrew Schmidt, Zvonimir Krajcer, Venkatesh Ramaiah, J. P. Runyon, Roger Gammon and Barry Weinstock. A special presentation will be made by Dr. Donna Mendes, who will discuss critical limb ischemia and amputations in the minority population. Perhaps the most exciting part of the all-day CLI Summit will be the multiple live CLI cases that will be transmitted from CIS. Historically, these have been quite complex cases and many of them will involve infrainguinal and especially infrapopliteal revascularization strategies. The majority of the live cases from CIS will be performed by our very own experienced staff, headed by Drs. Craig Walker, Peter Fail, Sam Stagg, III and our wonderful experienced cath lab staff, directed by Gary Chaisson, RT(R), RCVT/RCIS and his alphabet soup! Not only will many of the new CLI tools be presented during the didactic sessions of the summit, but these tools will also be used live during the cases. There will be great interaction between our panel, the live case operators and especially the multidisciplinary audience, where for the first time many wound care specialists, podiatrists, etc. will actually witness and interact during live limb salvage cases. NCVH has added several new sessions for 2007. Can you briefly describe these new additions? The first new session will occur on Wednesday, September 5th, with the Global Endovenous/DVT Summit. It is scheduled to follow after the Master's Laser and Cryoplasty Symposium, also on Wednesday. Note that venous disease is far more common than most are aware and increasing amounts of venous cases are being treated in our cath labs with endovascular therapies. The Global Endovenous/DVT Summit will be followed by our opening CTA kickoff dinner. The second new session, the inaugural Peripheral Vascular/CTA Imaging Symposium, will occur on Friday from 1:30“6 pm and is held in partnership with the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT). This will be the first CTA symposium fully dedicated to the emerging use and management of peripheral vascular CTA. Additionally, for the first time ever, we will actually have live cases that will be all set up previously by CTA. We will specifically discuss the management issues in utilizing CTA and how cases transition to endovascular treatment in the cath lab. This should be an exciting and landmark event. On Friday, we will hold a primary cardiovascular and diabetic care session which is endorsed by the PAD Coalition and the Vascular Disease Foundation. Immediately afterwards, will be the Disparities in Cardiovascular and Diabetes Health Care session, provided in partnership with the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC). Not only will we concentrate on the disparities in incidence, but also in treatment patterns for minority populations. Special emphasis will also be placed on critical limb ischemia, diabetes and limb salvage in this patient population, which has the single largest incidence of amputations. Several other new sessions include our New Therapeutic Wound Care Technology Summit on Friday, showcasing angiogenesis, wound care, wound repair, tissue regeneration and beyond. The Gerard V. Yu Memorial Keynote Lecture will be presented by Dr. William Li, a world authority on this subject. Attendance at this session is a true must for those interested in wound care and limb salvage. A similar session, Wound Care Lagniappe, will be held on Saturday. We are providing interactive lectures and will have over a dozen rotating hands-on workshops. We are bringing back our NCVH Renaissance Summit on Saturday, dedicated to reinventing the cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon. This session will contain faculty considered to be true legends in the field of medicine, including Drs. Thomas Fogarty and Ted Diethrich. Provided for all attendees will be hands-on workshops that will center on simulator training, aortic abdominal aneurysm (AAA) and thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) endovascular repair, PAD and carotid procedures. In addition, there will be contributions from the Edwards' B.E.S.T. program and Medtronic's EDGE program, which are industry initiatives aligned to assist surgeons in gaining catheter skills. At lunchtime, there will be a session sponsored by Terumo, in which we will introduce to the surgeons to what I call the ACC (access, catheters and closure) for surgeons. The novel Renaissance Summit will be stimulating to all involved and underscores what surgeons need to be doing to prepare themselves for the future, which is obtaining catheter-based skills. Naturally, imaging will be an important part of this endeavor, as cath lab techniques will migrate into the operative suite and similarly, the surgeons will be migrating into the cath lab environment. Perhaps the most exciting new session will be the inaugural Michael E. DeBakey, M.D. Cardiovascular and Diabetes Health Care Session, in which we will highlight the Veteran's Health Administration (VA) initiatives. This will really be the first academic and scientific session dedicated to our VA hospital systems. We are all aware that they treat the most challenging of all cases and the VA system is very important to our medical training. There are hundreds of VA hospital cath labs and cath lab professionals. We are honored to host their first educational event. During this session, there will be VA system oral abstracts. Faculty will include Dr. Robert Jesse, the national director of cardiology in the Veteran's Administration hospital system and Dr. Jeffery Robbins, DPM, national director of podiatry. Additionally, Drs. On Topaz, Nelson Bernardo, Alan Schob and Glenn Levine will be faculty members and/or true leaders in cardiovascular and diabetes healthcare delivery in the Veteran's Health Administration system. For those of you who may not know, Dr. DeBakey actually started the VA Hospital system after World War II. In 2006, for this achievement and many others, NCVH recognized Dr. DeBakey with the NCVH Lifetime Achievement Award. NCVH has been described as the multidisciplinary conference that walks the walk. Our primary cardiovascular practice group, CIS, was founded over 20 years ago with one of the main concepts of cardiovascular treatment being from head to toe. This means we developed a multidisciplinary approach towards treating the disease, and over a decade ago, it became quite obvious that the more disciplines we have involved with patient care, the better the potential outcomes. There really were no other conferences that addressed this need, and over the last 8 years, we have continued to build on this concept. We have stuck to that theme and therefore, we have truly walked the walk of a multidisciplinary conference. For that reason, we have an agenda appropriate for cardiologists, cardiovascular surgeons, endovascular specialists, podiatry, endocrinologists, diabetes specialists, wound care specialists, venous specialists, family physicians, internal medicine, RNs, PAs, nurse practitioners, pharmacology, and naturally all aspects of cath lab professionals. We have grown our conference from humble beginnings of a single-day event with 10 faculty, to now a 4-day event with over 3,500 participants, well over 2 dozen specific medical sessions and a renowned faculty of nearly 150. I suspect that is the reason NCVH has garnered the label of the multidisciplinary conference that truly does walk the walk. For more information, to register for the conference and/or to submit an abstract please visit the www.newcvhorizons.com or call 337-261-0944. For more information or to view the full agenda, which includes the ACVP & RCIS review course information, please visit newcvhorizons.com/brochure.

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