CardioExchange Archive

Several Cardiology Fellows who are attending this week’s AHA meeting are blogging together on CardioExchange. The Fellows include Susan Cheng, Madhavi Reddy, John Ryan, and Amit Shah. Check back often to learn about the biggest buzz in Chicago this week — whether it’s a poster, a presentation, or the word in the hallways. You can read the first post here.

The very first thing I noticed while boarding the massive buses to the AHA this morning was the advertisements by Takeda.  While somewhat intrusive, the ad itself was rather clever. It did not mention a particular drug but just showed the company name alongside a giant aortic arch shaped as an iceberg and the words “Hypertension, a global warning.” The ads were everywhere  — on the side of the bus, on the backs of every seat on the bus, and in the giant arrival hall at McCormick Place.

I was there early to attend the Early Career and Fellows-in-Training Program on Saturday, one day before the main conference. The vast behemoth of a hall was eerily empty. In the exhibits hall, steel boxes were being unloaded in preparation for the main events. After some help from some friendly security staff, I located room N427 for the opening session. One of the first speakers was Bob Bonow from Northwestern who delivered a rather sobering speech on the current state of clinical research in the U.S. He discussed how NIH funding for scientific research was decreasing and ended by saying that “the clinical investigator is an endangered species.” This left me rather reflective for the rest of the morning.

Luckily the afternoon session was more cheerful. There were several simultaneous small groups each on a specific topic, and I chose to attend the session on “Global Cardiovascular Research Training; Opportunities and Experiences.” I have been interested in global cardiovascular research since attending a World Heart Federation Conference on global cardiovascular epidemiology in 2006. I didn’t really know how to incorporate this interest into my clinical training as a cardiology fellow and this was a very practical presentation on exactly how to do so. All of the speakers were either cardiology fellows or recent graduates who had spent a significant portion of fellowship doing research abroad in countries ranging from India to Kenya and South Africa. The speakers talked about the challenges in setting up these projects, including finance and being far from family, but underlined how rewarding it had been. Most useful to me were some of the resources they used to finance their endeavors. Those interested in learning more might want to look at a short article in Circulation written by two of the speakers earlier this year.

In summary, the first day was everything we would expect from a scientific meeting — exciting, thought-provoking, and breathtakingly dull, all at the same time. Just kidding — the meeting is terrific, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to be here.