Conferences
A series of daily conferences that carry CME credits, and are geared to clinical fellow education, are offered on a weekly schedule. Some lectures also include didactic content and training for interventional cardiology and electrophysiology fellows. Clinical staff members, adjunct faculty, staff cardiologists and interdisciplinary specialists from other areas of medicine and surgery are invited and encouraged to attend our conferences, provide lectures, add expertise to discussions and enhance their own educational experience. Each month, a nationally or internationally renowned guest lecturer in cardiovascular diseases is invited to speak at the weekly Hospital grand rounds. Conference time is protected from interruption for clinical services barring patient emergencies.
- Electrophysiology Conference (EP I)
- ECG Conference (EP II)
- Interventional Cardiology Conference
- Cardiac Catheterization Conference
- Board Review
- Noninvasive Conference
Electrophysiology Conference (EP I)
A weekly EP conference is held on Mondays at 7am. The scope of this conference includes a core curriculum series on basic and clinical electrophysiology, case presentations by cardiology and EP fellows, morbidity and mortality reviews, and EP Journal Club.
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ECG conference is held every other Monday at 5pm. This conference is usually proctored by the key EP faculty attending physician, or another faculty physician, with commensurate experience in detailed EKG review. It's geared toward providing familiarity with the format and coding of surface ECGs as required by ABIM Cardiovascular Boards.
Fundamentals of ECG interpretation and arrhythmia evaluation are covered over the course of the academic year and arranged around particular key subjects. In addition, fellows present interesting and challenging surface ECGs or intracardiac recording for group discussion.
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Journal Club
- Journal Article Review: Once or twice a month on a Tuesday at 5pm, a clinical fellow presents a recent landmark article or research paper of contemporary interest pertaining to the field of cardiovascular medicine. The article is shared with the entire faculty at week before the session, and the presentation format typically involves a Powerpoint presentation briefly outlining the study and important points, followed by an extensive critical analysis using the JAMA User Guides to Medical Literature Review.
- Clinical Question Literature Review: Once a month on a Tuesday at 5pm, either a fellow or an attending selects for review a controversial or poorly understood clinical question. Fellows and attending physicians perform an extensive literature search using various search engines (Ovid, Pubmed, Cochrane database, Google Scholar, etc). They record their search parameters and results and select particular articles to briefly present to the group that may aid in answering the clinical question. The effectiveness of the search and the articles are discussed with the rest of the participants and a unified decision is usually achieved.
- Top Journals Review: Every few weeks on a Tuesday at 5pm, a fellow presents a powerpoint presentation of a brief overview, critique, and statement of the medical impact of six to ten recent articles from a particular journal, or subject material that is relevant to cardiovascular education and practice. These reviews are shorter and require less detail and analysis than the monthly Journal Article Review but are no less important.
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Clinical-Pathology Conference (CPC)
On the last Tuesday of each month at 5pm, a fellow rotating (or recently rotating) through CCU and telemetry is responsible for selecting and presenting an interesting case that was encountered during the previous month. The presentation should consist of a challenging clinical case and an extensive review of diagnostic work-up (laboratory data, pertinent noninvasive and invasive imaging, as well as hemodynamics) and therapeutic strategies. All fellows are required to actively participate in formulating differentials, and diagnostic and treatment plans as the case is presented to them through the lecture. Fellows are encouraged to select clinical cases that contain unusual patient presentations, involve controversial diagnostic methods or management, or result in a significant morbidity or mortality. Appropriate reference to medical literature is recommended, tying in the important features of the case.
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Cardiac Catheterization Conference (Cath I)
The cardiac catheterization conference is held every Wednesday at 7am. A clinical cardiology fellow rotating through the cardiac catheterization laboratory is responsible for the preparation of two out four weekly conferences. The conferences are usually in Powerpoint format and cover important topics in pathophysiology of heart disease, basic and advanced principles of hemodynamic monitoring, various aspects of pharmacotherapy in interventional cardiology and many more essential topics about which any cardiologist should be familiar. Once a month a session dedicated to review of interesting angiograms and interventional cases is proctored by one of the interventional cardiologists on the faculty with emphasis on training fellows to systematically and meaningfully interpret films. In addition, an interventional cardiology fellow prepares a monthly joint interventional cardiology-cardiothoracic surgery conference during which the most challenging coronary or valvular disease cases are shared with our cardiothoracic surgeons.
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Interventional Cardiology Conference (Cath II)
The interventional cardiology conference is held every other Monday at 5pm. Although the content of this conference is geared toward interventional fellows, all general cardiology fellows are encouraged to attend. All technical aspects of cardiac catheterization, various interventional procedures, as well as advanced topics in interventional cardiology are discussed during this conference.
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Board review is held every Thursday at 12pm and is a comprehensive review of all aspects of a particular cardiovascular disease subject and is designed specifically to prepare fellows for the ABIM Cardiovascular Boards. The topics include, but are not limited to adult congenital heart diseases, acute coronary syndromes, valvular heart diseases, congestive heart failure due to ischemic and infiltrative cardiomyopathies, multitude of topics in preventive cardiology, and in depth review of noninvasive and interventional imaging and treatment. Formats may also include examples of board style questions on the particular subject. On occasion, inter-disciplinary experts (i.e. pulmonology, infectious disease, cardiothoracic and vascular surgery, endocrinology, gerontology, genetics, etc.) are invited to host the lectures on specific subjects. A catered lunch is typically provided.
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Noninvasive Conference is held every Thursday at 12pm. It usually supplements the topic as the preceding board review with more detailed study and examples of diagnostic noninvasive imaging (chest radiography, echocardiography, vascular duplex imaging, nuclear imaging, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and cardiac computed tomographic angiography). Subject material is presented either by faculty members or fellows and includes the science, methods and technologies used for imaging, correct interpretation, anomalies, pitfalls, and economics of utilization. All noninvasive faculty members are required to also attend and lend their expertise to the discussion. A catered lunch is typically provided.
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Fellows Boot Camp
By popular demand of junior fellows, coordination of select time is provided to orient or bolster skills in particular areas. Prior subjects include on-call management skills, hands on training in bedside echocardiography and "knobology", cath and nuclear films interpretation, transvenous pacemaker and swan-ganz insertion clinics, EP device interrogation clinics, and board reviews prep. These informal conferences are organized and championed by senior fellows with occasional input from select faculty.
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Quality Initiative and Morbidity & Mortality Conference
On a quarterly basis, the entire Division of Cardiology meets to review select in-Hospital M&M cases involving patients directly cared for by Division staff. Senior faculty members and section heads chair the conferences, and impartial external oversight Hospital committees for review recommend cases. Root cause analysis evaluations are performed, as well as development of measures to improve patient safety, staff skills and education, and overall quality care.
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