At the conclusion of this activity, participants will be able to:

• Discuss case examples of diastology, valve regurgitation, valve stenosis and chamber quantification and recognize how they pertain to the corresponding ASE guidelines
• Describe the role of echocardiography in the operating room, EP lab and cath lab
• Explain the appropriate uses of novel echo techniques such as 3D echo, strain/ strain rate, speckle tracking, contrast echo
• Recognize basic and advanced echocardiographic principles and apply them to patient cases

Program Description

Principles of echocardiography will be reviewed and advances will be demonstrated through lectures and case studies. Participants will be exposed to all aspects of basic and advanced echocardiography. Morning sessions will be devoted to state-of-the art lectures on advances in echocardiography and specific application to the following states:

1. Heart Failure
2. Valvular Heart Disease
3. Interventional  Cardiology
4. Cardiac Surgery
5. Electrophysiology
6. Coronary Artery Disease

The following aspects of echocardiography will be recovered:

• 2D echocardiography
• Stress echocardiography
• Spectral and color Doppler
• Contrast echocardiography
• Transesophageal echocardiography
• Tissue Doppler, strain /strain rate
• 3D echocardiography
• Congenital heart disease

Case studies will be interspersed throughout each of the lectures to emphasize the importance and clinical utility of each technique discussed.

Small Group Sessions

In each of the small group sessions, a topic will be presented in detail by the instructor to a small group.  The case studies will emphasize different topics in echocardiography (Contrast, Stress Echo, Heart Failure, Valvular heart disease and Congenital).
Through the use of the small group format, all participants (both physicians and sonographers) will have the opportunity to interact to improved skills in obtaining good data to ensure complete, correct diagnostic studies in patients coming through the clinical laboratories.

Target Audience/ Prerequisites

The targeted audience is cardiology physicians, echocardiographers, internal medicine physicians with a specialty in echocardiography, anesthesiologists and surgeons who have a need for echo expertise, cardiac sonographers, and nurses. A  minimum of three months experience in echocardiography and knowledge of basic transesophageal anatomy and physiology of the heart is required. Experience in Doppler Echo would be advantageous, but is not required.