Cath Lab Digest

In lieu of the horrible events that have recently occurred in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina, what is the current status of the national New Cardiovascular Horizons, Renaissance Summit, and CLI Summit meetings?
In the face of the single largest natural disaster that this country has ever experienced, it is hard to focus on anything 6–8 weeks from now, especially something educational and not life-or-death. But we must. Life goes on, and so does education. Some hard decisions had to be made. In the true spirit of education, the executive committees of all three events have adopted the slogan, “Yes, it’s all still on!” As a matter of fact, we will move the entire 3-in-1-conference venue including the inaugural international CLI Summit, New Cardiovascular Horizons, and the Renaissance Summit 100% intact to the lovely Intercontinental Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. The exact dates and agenda will remain the same including live cases, satellite symposia and workshops. We were truly blessed to have one of the best hotel facilities in the country to have availability for our conference on such short notice. Our registrations and industry support have been tremendous and we hope the unfortunate need for a change of venue from New Orleans to Miami Beach will not be an inconvenience to registrants, and that they will continue to show their loyalty under these unprecedented circumstances.

The Intercontinental Hotel facilities are superb, and we’re getting great support from all of South Florida and beyond. We are particularly happy that the inaugural international CLI Summit will remain intact with live limb salvage cases. Yes, we will still showcase live cases. Our abstract response has been great and there is still time to submit abstracts. We have literally received thousands of calls and emails from our faculty and industry and all express their concern but also stand ready to enthusiastically do whatever it takes to continue with the conference. In the true spirit of education, we will work hard to duplicate the great “Horizons” events of the past few years in New Orleans, and we want everyone to know “Yes, it’s all still on!” in Miami Beach, same dates, same time.

What would you like to share with the physician or professional who has never had the chance to attend the New Devices Seminar?
New Cardiovascular Horizons (NCVH) began in 2000 as a small, local, multi-disciplinary meeting. I would stress “multi-disciplinary,” because that’s the way that our group, Cardiovascular Institute of the South, practices. We treat our patients from head to toe. The first NCVH meeting was so successful that we grew and spread to all disciplines that were primarily involved with the treatment of cardiovascular disease, especially peripheral vascular disease (PVD).

In its second and third years, NCVH expanded into podiatry, wound care education, and sessions for the cath lab tech, RN and whole range of cardiovascular health care givers. We also started the Masters and Legends program and honored our achievement award winners, who span various disciplines. Our first award winner was Julio Palmaz, a radiologist, and then the next year, Edward Diethrich, a surgeon. In 2003, the award was presented to Martin Leon, a cardiologist, and in 2004, to Thomas Fogarty, a surgeon. This year, we are presenting the achievement award to John Simpson, a cardiologist. These are the true “living legends” of our discipline.

The faculty we invited the first and second years gave excellent reviews and they liked the concept of a multi-disciplinary approach because no one else was doing it. Their positive response really enabled us to grow and to put together our Masters and Legends program. This is a single day that features the true living masters and legends in the cardiovascular and especially endovascular fields. It struck me that our specialty is so new that the true legends are still living and with us today. Instead of having these legends speak only for 8–10 minutes, we give them all 30 minutes to develop an in-depth presentation. No one has ever put together that kind of a lineup of physicians at one time, and it has been very well received.

Simultaneous with our positive cardiovascular faculty feedback, the podiatry, wound-care and all of the other disciplines faculty and attendees also provided great feedback. As a result, we were able to attract the leading physicians and specialists in each of the non-cardiovascular specialties as well, with equally noted faculty like Larry Harkless, David Armstrong, Andrew Boulton and John Steinberg, who are all “legends” in their respective disciplines. Likewise, we were able to do the same thing with nursing, primary care, internal medicine and endocrinology. The other secret was that we had excellent support from industry, because no one else was doing this type of meeting. As a result, NCVH grew from 500 to over 3500 attendees in only a five-year period.