Focus

Facing and experiencing cadiac surgery

The news strike like a thunder: open heart surgery is needed. Worries, fear, incredulity, refusal, perhaps also anger and frustration, these are most probably the initial feelings. Calm has to be regained, it is now more important than ever. I wish, the posts collected below may serve as a compass and help in the orientation in this complex and difficult context.

 

EACTS 2013

There is a plenty of meetings and conferences focusing on cardiology / cardiac surgery every year. Too many, actually. One of the most important ones in terms of participants and scientific impact is the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS). In many aspects, I believe it is better and more innovative than the big, classic american cardiac surgery meetings, such as the ones of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) or of the American Association of Thoracic Surgery (AATS).

In the following posts (all tagged “EACTS_2013”) I will review and share my favorite presentations of this years meeting. I will describe in a few sentences the clinical background to put the presentations into their context. Hopefully this will make the topics better understandable for you.