CardioExchange Archive

Several Cardiology Fellows who are attending ACC.11 this week are blogging together on CardioExchange. The Fellows include Sandeep Mangalmurti, Hansie Mathelier, John Ryan (moderating and providing an outsider’s view from Chicago), Amit Shah, and Justin Vader. See the previous post in this series, and check back often to learn about the biggest buzz in New Orleans.

As I am flying back from another great conference, I start to compare ACC.11 (New Orleans) with ACC.10 (Atlanta). By coincidence, my first leg of the flight home is New Orleans to Atlanta. I had two very different but wonderful experiences. I think it was my approach to this conference. I knew I couldn’t see everything but I really wanted to… To solve this internal conflict, I purchased the ISCIENCE from the conference. The challenge now is going to be actually sitting down at home and watching these lectures. My goal will be to watch most of them by the end of April, but perhaps May would be a more realistic goal. This time next year, I will hopefully have accomplished my goal and will be ready to conquer another ACC.12 in Chicago.

Each day of the conference gave me new insights into my surroundings and my knowledge in the world of cardiology. I was able to conclude the conference Tuesday afternoon with a Fellows Bowl: a quiz bowl competition consisting of three teams — UCSF, PENN, and local team Tulane. A few of my collegues and I booked later flights in order to cheer on our co-fellows. There was audience participation with the key pads. In the end, the home team won and the rest of us walked away with examples of board review questions. A few of us were thinking this would be a terrific thing to do on a weekly basis back at our home institution as a great review of general cardiology.

My Top Eight

Concluding my conference experience, ala  David Letterman’s Top Ten, my “Top Eight Things that I learned at ACC.11” (I think Letterman has Top Ten copyrighted) are the following:

8. PARTNER: “A good alternative to surgery.” Having managed patients pre- and post-TAVI, the next few years will be interesting as new questions will come up. How do you manage people after TAVI? Will the outcomes be the same as new centers start TAVI programs?

7. Cobblestones and uneven pavement are not my friends. Walking around ACC with a sprained ankle isn’t fun. Also, I quickly realized how long the conference hall is.

6.  STICH: Medicine works!!!

5. The 5Ps: Plavix, PPI, Pharmodynamics, Pharmokinetics…after an afternoon section, might be easier to chose Prasgruel. If I needed a stent and was not sure if I am a nonresponder, which drug would I choose?

4. Networking and socializing with co-fellows, friends from residency, and meeting new colleagues and mentors through different events — priceless.

3. ISCIENCE: an easy way to hopefully conquer the conference at home.

2. Heart Hub: excellent way to maximize your conference. Very similar to watching three TV shows at the same time.

1. Spending time with co-fellows and attendings at a local restaurant sharing everyone’s experience about current and past conferences.

For more of our ACC.11 coverage of late-breaking clinical trials, interviews with the authors of the most important research, and blogs from our fellows on the most interesting presentations at the meeting, check out our Coverage Roundup.