Prof Hans Henning Eckstein about Vascular Education

Interview: Prof. Hans-Henning Eckstein MD.- Munich, Germany
Faculty Member of the European Vascular Course
Board Member, Vascular International Foundation, www.vascular-international.org
Interview by Melchior Lippisch, European Vascular Conversation

MLi: The Vascular International Foundation is a well known organization, what makes it special?

HHE: Vascular surgery as a specialty has a multitude of different procedures, demanding for mastering particular technical skills to successfully perform vascular operations. At the time of the very first vascular course in Zermatt, Switzerland in 1991, only the general and orthopedic surgery offered practically oriented courses.
The founders Professors Jens Allenberg/Heidelberg, Georg Hagmüller/Vienna and Jon Largiader/Zurich realized the lack of practical oriented learning for vascular surgeons and just filled a gap for advanced vascular surgical training. They first started with training on surgical suture techniques, but soon they discovered that adequate models were needed to mimic anatomic conditions. They began to develop these anatomic models, in cooperation with the Institute of Anatomy within the Zurich University.

A substantial wealth of experience has accumulated over the last 18 years and brought forward exceptional, sophisticated life-like models for open and endovascular surgery. These models have been refined and improved continuously and new versions were developed just recently. Today, we are able to train delegates in open and endovascular aortic surgery, in distal bypass surgery on leg models. Carotid surgery is trained on a pulsatile carotid model, even allowing our participants to practice endarterectomy. Another aspect making our vascular training so special is represented by the many well experienced tutors at the training units, always available to check performance of trainees, to discuss technical aspects, assisting the delegates, whenever they need or want it.

MLi: Can you highlight the origin of a European Masterclass for Vascular Surgery?

The first 9 years courses held in Zermatt, Switzerland were in German language only.
In the millennium year we invited a group of renowned international surgeons, taking part with guest lectures. It was the beginning of European oriented thinking as we started exporting our concept of training courses.
Later, the advanced course has been internationalized and instantly became successful, as our friends and co-trainers from various countries engaged in promoting the course within their own countries. Vascular International was invited to organize courses during the ESVS, in China, Italy, France and other countries. By our own experience we could assess the emerging needs for our special training methodology and its benefit. Together with John Wolfe from the UK and several other vascular surgeons, we decided to start the EUROPEAN VASCULAR MASTERCLASS for those advanced international vascular surgeons, who wanted to refine their techniques and skills through an intensive training hands-on course.

This year we perform the EUROPEAN VASCULAR MASTERCLASS together with the EUROPEAN VASCULAR COURSE (EVC) for the second time. As the EVC addresses mainly clinical topics by state-of-the-art lectures and interactive discussions, it makes a lot of sense to combine it with our international postgraduate course and intense hands-on-training on open and endovascular simulators.

Therefore we are very grateful to Michael Jacobs and Alain Branchereau for their kind invitation to perform this EUROPEAN VASCULAR MASTERCLASS again (focusing on open and endovascular aortic and carotid reconstructions) in the two days (February 24-25) before the EVC.

Left: New Endovascular Workstation for the European Vascular Masterclass

This image shows the excellent equipment for this course. Left is the new endovascular training unit available for simulating treatment of Thoraco-Abdominal Aneurysm. Trainings are held in close cooperation between the tutors and our industrial partners, who assist in instructing the trainees how to correctly apply their company’s endovascular products.

MLi: What is the benefit of taking part in the European Vascular Masterclass?

HHE:There are three essential benefits:

First: We offer a very intense hands-on-training of more than 20 hours in 2 days with a very favorable tutor-trainee-ratio of 1 in 4. This enables us to comply with individual demands and wishes.

Second: Our anatomic leg and abdomen models are absolute realistic giving the trainees the chance to perform complete procedures like profundoplasty or aortic interposition grafting. We are particularly concerned about continuous improvement of our models. For instance this year a three-dimensional modular endovascular model with a compliant aneurysm model will be introduced, helping us to simulate endovascular procedures from the aortic arch down to the iliac arteries. The same is true for a new neck model with carotid inlays to train different CEA techniques.

New anatomic endovascular model (TAA)

Third: We are very keen to promote an international exchange of vascular surgical experience and philosophies. This exchange arrived and is done by international tutors, joining us every year and by an increasing number of delegates not only from Germany, Austria and Switzerland but also from the UK, Spain, the US, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, The Netherlands and many other countries. This January even a female vascular surgeon from Brasil participated in our EUROPEAN VASCULAR MASTERCLASS Open-vascular and endovascular surgery training unit in MAASTRICHT February 24/25 2009!

MLi: How will education for vascular surgeons develop within the next years?

HHE: Since the technical options in open and endovascular vascular are rapidly evolving, vascular surgeons are under pressure to keep the pace with those technical improvements based mainly on new endovascular devices. This rapid change implies an ongoing process of continuous theoretical and technical learning for all of us. Therefore technical workshops with synthetic simulators are getting more and more important. In order to promote a high standard of teaching and training the Pontresina Vascular Workshops consists of three elements:


1. Basic Vascular Surgical Course (held in Pontresina and in Berlin once a year)
2. EUROPEAN VASCULAR MASTERCLASS (held in Pontresina and now in Maastricht for the second time with the european Vascular Course)
3. Anatomical Exposure Course for distal bypass surgery held at the Anatomical Institute in Zurich/Switzerland once a year.
Due to the ongoing demand for more sophisticated vascular training courses we have decided to extend our offer in holding courses throughout Europe within the next years. Taking this strategy into consideration, the combination of the EUROPEAN VASCULAR MASTERCLASS with the EUROPEAN VASCULAR COURSE is a significant step forward towards enhanced vascular hands-on trainings.

European-Vascular Course 2009

A new multidisciplinary approach, a new Venue and a new Date

The 13th European Vascular Course enters into a new era with innovative changes, a new format of its 3 days of intensive courses and updates within cardiovascular surgery!
One of the significant changes has been shifting the date away from the ever busy month of May for cardiovascular events worldwide. The European Vascular Course will now and most probably in the future be held in February at first on 26th to 28 in 2009.

The organizers of the EVC, upon their successful Course in 2008, did not rest for long. Upon reflections about the future and how to adapt the European Vascular Course fitting the within the cardiovascular world they have introduced significant changes.

In 2009 the European Vascular Course will transform into reaching out to enlarge its target groups by being transformed into a “European Cardiovascular Course”

The 13th European Vascular Course, a new season, which brings many changes and a new format to the 3 days of intensive courses and updates in February 2009. Modern cardiovascular diagnostics and interventions are performed by multidisciplinary teams and the time is there to adapt the “European Vascular Course” to be an event taking into account the new situation and cooperation of teams in the cardio-vascular world.

For the first time, the EVC will be in Maastricht, home of Michal Jacobs MD a very nice midsize town in the Southeast of the Netherlands close to Belgium, France and Germany.
The city has been truly European as it was the place at the origin of the European Union will be an excellent venue for building and strengthening ties in between related specialties in cardiovascular medicine.

More important reasons for the change to Maastricht according to Michael Jacobs is the undisputable convenience of the Exhibition & Congress Center (MECC) in walking distance to the University Hospital. The resources of the AZ Maastricht at hand will be of great advantage to the Cardiovascular Courses, which opens many new opportunities to enhance the educational teaching facilities.
The Conference center also has several hotels in its vicinity ideal for providing accommodation for participants nearby. It save time for the participants who are able to walk only shortly to reach the new venue of the European Vascular Course…

I visited Maastricht several times and find this a beautiful town, with many beautiful old buildings and paved little streets and nice little squares. The word cozy may be more appropriate for describing the environment inside Maastricht, also for some of their excellent restaurants I have enjoyed over the years.

The fact that Maastricht is situated on the crossroad of the three countries nearby should make it easy for European’s cardiovascular physicians to reach Maastricht to participate.
Another aspect of the change is the more cost-effective environment compared to the metropolitan areas, specially important in times of economic pressures like today.

Read the introduction of the new “European Vascular Course” here:

European-Vascular Course 2008

The founders and organizers of the event Michael Jacobs MD (Maastricht/the Netherlands & Aachen/Germany) and Alain Branchereau MD (Marseille/France) had a great success in May 2008 at hand, when the "European Vascular Course" (from now on abbrieviated in copy to EVC) took place in Amsterdam. Despite the enormous competition from the many other cardiovascular and vascular meetings across Europe and the rest of the world in May the EVC had its best visited event in its history in 2008.


The EVC-organization had invested into continuous promotion via its website which we have created for them. We proposed the organizers to create a meaningful newsletter, containing interviews and reports, sent to more than 10000 cardiovascular physicians in a monthly frequency over a year .

Prof. Jacobs and Prof. Branchéreau engaged themselves in many promotional activities as part of the preparation for 2008, all of which contributed largely to the success in 2008.
The program has been modified, Minerva Medica Edizioni, a well established medical publisher had been selected for the reference book and for the first time the life voting involving the audience after each presentation worked extremely well.

The opportunity for active sharing of opinions has become an important feature in our times as people have the desire to express themselves. Voting for answers to important questions in medical meetings, although nothing new, had a very positive effect on the EVC 2008

The program had many highlights and to pick one of many, I think of the keynote speech of Ross Naylor, Leceister , UK:

“Managing carotid disease in the third Millenium. Time to confront some inconvenient truths”.

The participants filled the auditorium to the last seat and attentively followed his amazing discourse and quest for a regular study of vascular science with a critical sense, thus transforming own findings into best daily practice. Ross gave brilliant audiovisual presentation seasoned with good old British humor and spiced up with interesting facts about papers, some obviously leading people to false conclusions.

In my Interview before his keynote speech, Ross gave the following statement:


RN: "Carotid disease remains one of the most controversial and scientifically scrutinized conditions of all time. However despite the considerable evidence base, surgeons and interventionists have tended to selectively cite (or more commonly ignore) data from randomised trials in order to justify personal prejudices. These landmark trials, however, highlighted a number of very important issues that many would prefer not to be debated. More importantly, these ‘inconvenient truths’ do not assume lesser importance just because there is now a less invasive alternative to surgery. My aim, therefore, will be to challenge the audience to shed their ‘one size fits all’ attitude towards treating patients with carotid disease. It is my simple contention that we are treating far too many patients (with CEA and CAS) who have relatively little risk of suffering a stroke long term, while perpetuating health systems that do not offer interventions to the most vulnerable subgroups."
(Read the entire interview with Ross Naylor MD. here )
.

Ross Naylor in his talk demonstrated how important it is to thoroughly study information. In the debate about surgery against less invasive treatment propelled by the interventionists, it may be necessary to be objective in order to be able to find the truth which of the available treatment of carotid artery disease is appropriate for each individual patient.

Summary:
The quality of the different vascular courses and symposia at the EVC 2008 has been exquisite, whether organized by the EVC itself or its partners from industry have been exquisite. Most of the sessions were well visited and the logistic organization very efficient. The atmosphere throughout the whole conference has been very favorable and if you look at my pictures are the prove of a great interactive event.

In 2007, the European Vascular Course took a nose dive in the number of visitors after several countries had changed legislation for sponsorships of physicians, and a few other vascular events concurred at the very same date.

However, modifications and extensive promotion, as described led to a brilliant comeback and brought the European Vascular Course 2008 back on the winning street.

Next contribution: Why the EVC continues to change to enhance its success!

Can Web 2.0 Technology assist in progressing Vascular Care

The question may not even exist for most of vascular specialists and even sound funny for those who have not had time or interest to explore Web 2.0 applications a bit closer than hear-say. Some may regard the Web 2.0 communities as purely social and even a waste of time. However, wait before you judge! Wasn’t there the same mindset, when the web started to make first inroads into European healthcare? Only ten years ago, when we advocated and recommended our friends and customers (through Welldoo-Universal Ltd.) to employ the power of the web, those doctors, administrators and advisors were hesitant and warned to not overrate the influence of this type of new media on consumers! At that time the US healthcare already embraced the Internet people realized the commercial impact and benefit. The European healthcare professionals, however, needed almost half a decade to discover the enormous benefit of web-marketing.

Looking at the actual status in healthcare – marketing is in everybody’s mouth today and its presence in the niche of vascular care is evident. Within the competitive world of third millennium healthcare, it has become extremely important is to be noticed. Suddenly branding services, hospitals, departments, individual healthcare professionals as well as those many vascular educational meetings has become a priority!
Marketing has reached all aspects of medical services not only vascular specialties!
As we are working in healthcare marketing we have experienced this change, and it’s still just at the beginning, while strategic marketing-concepts seem to go through significant changes again!

I can't deny that for myself, the level of communication and interaction enabled by the Web 2.0 applications, has brought a new dimension to my life. You may have noticed or not - sharing knowledge over the web with others has become an incredibly important ingredient in many lives, within the private life as in the professional sphere! One to one communication at a Congress

Contrary to the above picture, new marketing is built on dialogue in between peers but also with the consumers, listening to them more carefully to understand their views, how they perceive the quality of services an organisation offers. Feedback has become so important to be able to carry out the changes the customers wish to see and to optimize the service portfolio. (this may concern the potential visitors of a medical meeting/ or the patients as clients within the clinic)

Back to vascular care and vascular surgery – did this particular niche not from an attention deficit ? Overshadowed by cardiac – or general surgery, the public did not have much awareness about the enormous challenges and the widely differentiated therapies of the vascular care.

It may have changed to the positive today – but it still may not have the awareness vascular care deserves in the public mind.
Vascular specialists are building this market and awareness together!
We are definitely including all specialists herein, whether active within vascular surgery, interventionists in radiology and cardiology as well as phlebology, angiology and other related therapists. Not to forget the related industries - who come forward with technologies as pharmaceutical chemistry accelerating progress of vascular therapies.

All of them are taking part of building the public awareness and future of vascular therapy!

Nevertheless, where is the web-enabled dialogue in between these specialists across their boarders? – Will it be ever possible to have this informal interdisciplinary exchange? Could it build new relationships and bridge gaps in between the competitive vascular professions?


We assume the time is ripe for a permanent dialogue across the boarders of vascular specialities in order to further innovate and discuss the progress of cooperation on vascular therapies. this dialogue normlly is confined to conventions. But wouldn'it be beneficial to sty in touch and continue the conversation, like within a permanent symposium with your peers?

Web 2.0 may be an answer to this motion and as people are meeting on facebook or myspace, Xing or other networks, we have to start the dialogue right here. We are convinced that the generation of digital native doctors will embrace this kind of opportunity

“European Vascular Conversation” hs been started and will bring to you information and news relating to WEB 2.0 and its available players. You may check out our blog from time to time, subscribe to the newsletter and even contribute your own articles and comments.

Please do not hesitate to comment and contact us!

Communication Nation: New website!

Communication Nation: New website!

The New Era of Communication

It is not yet obvious to everyone, it wasn't to me! Even that I am working with the web day by day it took me some time to realize and get aware of the changes and the new communication habits. Maybe when you watch your kids/teenagers interact and have conversations via their channels on the web, you may grasp what it is all about.

Some of the experts are calling this the attention "Attention Era", some name it "Engagement Era" and others more precisely define it as the "Participation Era".

The start has been the 1 on 1 (101) version with a websites carrying the content enabling presence on the web. Websites a must for every organisation today, however, it may not reveal the true size of an enterprise and in most cases there is no interactivity.

Today by the social media the 201 communication model takes on with blogging, podcasting and networking like never before. Single people literally from their home create huge audiences – interactive conversations and lead the field in several niches of businesses or subjects of relevance to people, subscibing to their media-outlets (mostly blogs).
The citizen journalism and these new communities have created a strong impact in different fields with their “wisdom of the crowd”.

I am a strong believer that the medical community could benefit from these exchanges and conversations – especially in the vascular field as it is highly dynamic and innovative looking at the prolific technology and the continuously developing endovascular and interventional techniques.

But there are more issues to talk about like communications itself, or the discussion about conventions, report about special papers and about what technical and educational matters maybe rank which events are helpful or not.

I started this because I am a great believer in open communication and I believe having understood about the importance to start something NOW!
Especially when the idea came up out after quite some time of research!
Please join the vascular conversation and let us know where the issues are!

Let's start talking vascular health matters!

Yes it is true - the world has changed dramatically with the new communication tools!
We have at hand an enormous wealth of content today, like never before. Through new communication tools like this blog, we have even more chances to learn from each other, bringing up subjects of interest to be discussed.

European Vascular Conversation shall work also for finding and reaching new friends be it in private or in business. Countless networks have been started online with great success a few years ago and more are building up multiplying relations on a truly global base.

The idea to build this blog came to me through my long research for new ways of marketing in healthcare and examples I have seen in other businesses, where people use these communication tools successfully! My wife Gudrun Bjarnadottir and I have been working on building marketing tools and web-communication for different organizations and bodies in healthcare. Through our past in the cardiovascular medical device industry, particularly in vascular and cardiac surgery, we have gained a lot of knowledge about this profession.

Frankly said, I like the vascular community very much and we have many friends in the different countries! At present we are working on the promotion of the European Vascular Course, a very important European postgraduate vascular course. Another of our customers “Vascular International” is a foundation which provides world-class “vascular hands-on trainings” and last not least as a long-time customer to date is the "German Society for Endovascular and Vascular Surgery" (GSEVS)

The idea for this blog came suddenly after a realization that an open public dialogue in between the active vascular healthcare providers is missing. We have journals and vascular news – conferences, courses, symposia and conventions.
Could the vascular marketplace not benefit from a place for blogging online, for giving feedback, leaving comments and speaking out?
Why not?

Millions of consumers and professionals today create new meaningful content!

The European Vascular Conversation has therefore been opened to be a place for all professionals in vascular healthcare, open and public - as sharing information is the creation of wealth in our time.

We invite you to:

Join the Conversation

Yours,

Melchior Lippisch