CCAS Newsletter and Education Update
By Mark Twite, MD, BCh
Denver Children’s Hospital
The education component of the CCAS website will develop significant content over the next 6 months. Hopefully this will be of considerable benefit to CCAS members who will have access to this content. There will be three main parts; previous CCAS meeting content, echocardiography image of the quarter and the lecture series.
Previous CCAS meeting content
The goal of this section is to provide access to the outstanding talks that have been given at past CCAS meetings. Initially, this will simply be in the form of read-only access to a presenter’s slides and/or notes. Eventually, I hope we can record the lectures and present them so it is possible to listen to the speaker and see their slides at the same time. To listen to a speaker explain the content of their slides should help facilitate understanding and learning. This meeting content should become a valuable archive of knowledge delivered by some of the leaders in the field of congenital cardiac anesthesia.
Echocardiography image of the quarter
The goal of this section will be to cover many of the basic images of congenital cardiac anatomy as well as the more unusual findings. To be able to watch looped cine images with detailed text explaining the findings should help the anatomical and physiological understanding of many congenital heart lesions.
Lecture series
The goal of this series is to cover all aspects of anesthesia for congenital heart disease. These lectures will be published to the website in read-only power point slide format with detailed speaker notes. This will enable individuals to study in their own time and at their own pace. These lectures will typically take 45 minutes to complete. The lectures that will be posted over the next six months are as follows:
- History and introduction to cardiac anesthesia
- Cardiac Morphology
- Anesthetic Drugs in congenital heart disease
- Cardiopulmonary bypass, ECMO and VAD
- Ultrafiltration and CPB
- Cerebral oximetry
- Swan-Ganz catheters
- pH & alpha stat
- Aminocaproic acid and Factor VII
- Anesthesia in the cardiac catheterization lab
- Hemodynamic calculations
- TEG & platelet mapping
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Williams syndrome
- Single Ventricle physiology
- Anesthesia for heart transplants
- Cardiac donation after cardiac death
- Ultrasound and vascular access
- Cardiomyopathy
- Anesthesia for right side lesions
- Anesthesia for left-to-right shunts
- Anesthesia for left side lesions
- Hybrid procedures
- Anesthesia for transposition of the great vessels
- Regional anesthesia in cardiac cases
- Pacemakers & ICDs
- ALCAPA and Cardiac tamponade
- Vascular rings, slings and other things
- Single lung ventilation
- Cardiac MRI
- Anesthesia for non-cardiac surgery in patients with congenital heart disease
- Anesthesia for adults with congenital heart disease
These lectures are currently being reviewed and prepared for the CCAS website. This list is not meant to be exhaustive – if you have lectures that you would like included then please contact me! Over time, these lectures can be updated and changed and should represent some of the collective wisdom that exists in our society.
