CCAS Website: Education Update
By Mark D. Twite, MD
The education offering for members on the CCAS website continues to grow. The education section of the website has three main parts:
- Quarterly ECHO Image
Dr. Wanda Miller-Hance has contributed our first pediatric ECHO image. These ECHO images will serve as an excellent education resource and foster discussion with our cardiology colleagues. - Meeting Materials
Past meetings from 2009 to 2012 have the meeting syllabus published. This will help members research previous topics that have been presented. - Lecture series
There are now 23 lectures available for members. There have been many great contributions from faculty at four different cardiac centers. New topics include; cardiac hybrid procedures, SBE prophylaxis, pH stat vs. alpha stat, pacemakers, an update on the Fontan procedure, Fontan conversion, patients with congenital heart disease for non-cardiac surgery, channelopathies, single ventricle physiology, cardiomyopathy and transitional circulation. These new contributions are really outstanding, so be sure to look at them!
A very large THANK YOU is due to all of these contributors for their time developing these topics and for sharing their efforts with a larger audience. If you see a topic that has not been covered, then please consider contributing.
The goal for the education section over the next year is to continue to grow content in the ECHO images and lecture series. There are also plans to reintroduce an email discussion forum on current congenital cardiac anesthesia topics. As a group of congenital cardiac anesthesiologists, we only have the opportunity to gather once per year at the annual CCAS meeting to discuss current issues and new topics.
However, many new issues affect our everyday practice. An email discussion list offers the opportunity to post questions and obtain quick responses to a particular problem. Such collective wisdom can be a very helpful tool when caring for complex cardiac patients. The new discussion forum aims to generate a single email per day to participating members. We all suffer from email inbox overload! We are also working on making this discussion forum available through the CCAS website, which can also serve as an archive of questions and responses.
This is a work in progress; if you have strong feelings on how you would like this discussion forum to work, then please let me know! In the meantime, keep sending in those contributions.
