I am excited to welcome you to my home state of Texas for the Congenital Cardiac Anesthesia Society’s 18th Annual Meeting. My colleagues on the planning committee, Jamie McElrath Schwartz, Nischal Gautam, Rania Abbasi and CCAS Education Chair Luis Zabala, and I have put together a program focusing on “Challenges at the Extremes of Care” with a focus on neonatal and adult congenital heart care. Our speakers include national and international experts in their fields of interest, including Dr. Alan Flake from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who will be presenting the Arthur Keats Lecture on his lab’s artificial womb to help extremely premature babies survive the first weeks while minimizing morbidity. We will hear from Dr. Riva Ko from Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York City speaking on how they have organized their perioperative care for neonates and from Dr. Cameron Dezfulian addressing the other end of spectrum as the Medical Director for the Adult Congenital Heart Critical Care Unit at Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the first dedicated ACHD units in the country. Other speakers will be focusing on various aspects of both surgical and non-surgical approaches to neonatal and adult patients. In the afternoon, Dr. Doug Atkinson from Boston Children’s Hospital will be presenting the PCICS lecture on Oxygen in the Cardiac OR and ICU and Dr. Asif Padiyath from CHOP will be updating us on current and future echocardiography trends.
For the early risers, we have accepted multiple outstanding Problem-Based Learning Discussions (PBLDs) and Roundtables on a wide variety of clinical and ethical scenarios. For the first time ever, we are thrilled to be offering a roundtable in Spanish presented by our colleagues from Uruguay, Drs. Leibusiewicz and Peluas. After lunch we will hear from our best abstracts podium presentations and celebrate this year's CCAS lifetime achievement winner. At the end of our day, we have a poster session showcasing the cutting-edge science and challenging cases in our field followed by our reception.
We had an excellent response to the call for workshops and are pleased to offer the opportunity to meet in small groups for topics ranging from coagulation management to career and personal growth by experts in the field. Meanwhile the main room will feature our final sessions of the day; Dr. Rania Abassi will be providing a brief overview of important articles in the field that have been published in the past year and Dr. Vivian Nasr will give an overview of the findings to date of the CCAS Manpower Initiative and its implications. Dr. Renee Kreeger from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital will discuss how she has helped develop a peer counseling system to provide support to faculty and staff dealing with the difficult issues that arise in caring for our patients.
Finally, the City of Austin is one of the fastest growing areas in the US. I hope you get a chance to explore its incredible mix of culture, food, and outdoor activities within just a few blocks of our meeting, including a multi-mile beautiful hike/run/bike trail looping around Lake Lady Bird Johnson, where you can also try out paddle boarding, kayaking or canoeing. The food scene along South Congress ranges from amazing food trucks to world-class restaurants. If you want a true Austin experience I highly recommend waiting in line for hours for Aaron Franklin’s BBQ – it sounds crazy but it’s worth the effort. Although SRV has sadly passed on, the Austin music scene is still one of the best in the country and is home to the Austin City Limits and the South x Southwest Festivals. Numerous small venues with amazing live music are located nearby. Welcome to CCAS and Austin – let’s learn and enjoy together!
All Program & Schedule Times are Central Time (CDT).