Rethinking Our Annual Congress-Meeting the Needs of Specialist Physicians by Partnering With Provincial Simulation Centers.

ABSTRACT: Canada's maintenance of certification programs for physicians has evolved to emphasize assessment activities. Our organization recognized the importance of offering more practice assessment opportunities to our members to enhance their practice and help them comply with a regulation from our provincial professional body related to ongoing continuing education. This led us to rethink our annual congress and enrich the program with a curriculum of interdisciplinary simulation sessions tailored to meet the needs of a broad audience of specialists. Our challenges are similar to those of many national specialty societies having limited access to simulation facilities, instructors, and simulation teams that can cover the breadth and scope of perceived and unperceived simulation needs for their specialty. Our innovative solution was to partner with local experts to develop 22 simulation sessions over the past three years. The response was very positive, drawing 867 participants. Over 95% of participants either agreed or strongly agreed that their simulation session (1) met their learning objectives, (2) was relevant for their practice, and (3) encouraged them to modify their practice. Narrative comments from a survey sent to the 2018 participants four months after their activity indicated several self-reported changes in their practice or patient outcomes. We were able to centralize offers from organizations that had previously worked in silo to develop simulation sessions meeting the needs of our members. Proposing simulation sessions allowed our organization to establish long-term partnerships and to expend our "educational toolbox" to address skill gaps not usually addressed during annual meetings.

Poor correlation between hemodynamic and echocardiographic indexes of left ventricular performance in the operating room and intensive care unit.

OBJECTIVES: To compare hemodynamic and echocardiographic indexes of left ventricular performance. DESIGN: Retrospective database analysis of four clinical trials. SETTING: University hospital. PATIENTS: Cardiac surgery patients. INTERVENTION: Left ventricular performance was evaluated using left ventricular stroke work index (LVSWI) calculated from the pulmonary artery catheter and both fractional area change and regional wall motion score index (RWMSI) measured from transesophageal echocardiography. Measures of left ventricular performance were obtained before and after bypass (group 1, n = 30), during acute increase and decrease in preload (group 2, n = 14), after administration of inhaled prostacyclin or placebo in patients with pulmonary hypertension (group 3, n = 20), and in hemodynamically unstable patients in the intensive care unit at admission and at 2 and 4 hrs (group 4, n = 20). MAIN RESULTS: A total of 186 simultaneous LVSWI, fractional area change, and RWMSI were analyzed and compared. Patients with RWMSI <1.3 had a LVSWI of 23.4 +/- 10.3 g.m.m compared with 18.4 +/- 7.2 g.m.m in those with RWMSI >1.3 (p =.0349). Subdividing fractional area change into three different groups (> or =50%, 25% to 49%, and < or =24%), the corresponding values of LVSWI were 22.3 +/- 9.7 g.m.m, 22.2 +/- 10.8 g.m.m, and 17.7 +/- 5.5 g.m.m, respectively (p =.5114). Correlations between LVSWI and RWMSI changes ranged from -0.28 to 0.16 (p values from.31 to.94). Correlations between LVSWI and fractional area change changes ranged from -0.62 to 0.22 (p values from.07 to.95). CONCLUSION: There is a significant discrepancy and limited relationship between the hemodynamic and echocardiographic evaluation of left ventricular performance.