Spring Training: Transradial Style

Baseball and U.S. mapNo less than four U.S. training courses in Transradial Angioplasty have just been announced for this Spring (and, yes, Spring is actually going to come after this very long winter). And all of these training opportunities are being offered at no cost.

The courses span the length and breadth of the United States. From East to West they are:

1. The Mid-Atlantic Radial Symposium 2014, or MARS 2014, will be held at the Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute at Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, New Jersey on Saturday, May 3. This is the third iteration of this course, organized by Jordan Safirstein, MD, FACC, FSCAI, and is the only one of the four courses that offers CME accreditation, specifically 5.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits, as well as live case demonstrations.

Dr. Jordan Safirstein and his Google Glass

Dr. Jordan Safirstein and his Google Glass

A most interesting innovation: Dr. Safirstein has indicated that he will be using his Google Glass to transmit some of the live procedures.

The faculty for MARS 2014 is a Who’s Who of transradial intervention: Drs. Samir Pancholy, Sunil V. Rao, John Coppola, Kintur A. Sanghvi and just today it was announced that the “father of transradial intervention”, Dr. Ferdinand Kiemeneij of The Netherlands, will be joining Dr. Safirstein et al on the faculty.

Needless to say, if you are interested in the transradial approach to interventional cardiology, and you are anywhere in the Northeast, you should definitely attend this one-day course. After all, there is no charge, thanks to the sponsorship of Terumo, Merit Medical, Medtronic, Vascular Solutions, Boston Scientific and The Medicines Company.

2. On the same day, way to the South in Texas, the Houston Transradial Summit 2014 will be held. Program Director Dr. Sanjay Patel will be joined by transradial pioneer Dr. John Coppola of NYU Langone Medical Center in NYC, to present a one day didactic symposium. The program’s organizer states: “This year’s theme is ‘Radial First Catheterization‘ and will focus on bringing our audience valuable content whether you are new to or experienced in transradial access. Topics that will be covered include clinical instruction on transradial technique, transradial applications in the periphery, devices with transradial application, successful techniques when femoral access is necessary, management of transradial complications, transradial case reviews, transradial practice management topics, marketing your transradial practice, and topics for nurses/techs/managers.” The Houston Transradial Summit is sponsored by Medtronic and Mentice.

3. The next weekend sees Advanced Topics in Transradial Angiography and Intervention in Chicago, Illinois on May 10. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation and funded through an educational grant from Medtronic CardioVascular, this program is subtitled “Practical Skill Sets to Advance Your Growing Practice.” Course Co-Chairs are Sandeep Nathan, MD, MSc of the University of Chicago Medical Center and Adhir Shroff, MD, MPH of the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System. Dr. Pinak Shah from Brigham and Women’s in Boston and Dr. Shroff’s colleague, Dr. Mladen Vidovich, will also be on the faculty. The course organizers are Drs. Philippe Généreux and Ajay J. Kirtane of CRF. The course is only open to interventional cardiologists and interventional cardiology fellows. You can register online for this course. There is no charge. The course is not CME accredited.

4. The CRF course moves way West in for a June 14 program, Transradial Symposium: Strategies for Success in Marina del Rey, California.  Course Co-Chairs are Sunil V. Rao, MD of Duke University Medical Center and Jason H. Rogers, MD of UC Davis. Dr. Rao has written extensively on transradial access and been the PI for a number of peer-reviewed studies. Additional faculty includes Dr. Mauricio Cohen of University of Miami Medical Center, Dr. Matthew Price of Scripps Green (Dr. Price was the PI for GRAVITAS and speaks regularly on the role of antiplatelet therapy and interventional cardiology), and Dr. Samir Pancholy of Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education in Pennsylvania (Dr. Pancholy is Chair of SCAI’s Transradial Working Group and has written extensively on the concept of “patent hemostasis”). As with the Chicago course, the organizers are Drs. Philippe Généreux and Ajay J. Kirtane of CRF. The course is only open to interventional cardiologists and interventional cardiology fellows. You can register online for this course. There is no charge. The course is not CME accredited.

If your Spring is filled up, you may want to wait until the Fall, when Dr. Olivier Bertrand will be presenting his three-day comprehensive transradial course, AimRadial 2014, in Chicago on October 23-25. I attended his AimRadial course last fall and can attest to its excellence and thorough critical coverage of this innovative approach. Virtually every important transradialist in the U.S. and many from OUS were in attendance.

For the most up-to-date information on these and other training opportunities, check out our Transradial Training Course page on Angioplasty.Org, part of our Transradial Center, which is supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Medtronic Cardiovascular.

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